My garden bed is booming between the sun and the rain. I spent some time with it, exploring the flowers, some of them popping up for the first time. It was well worth battling the heat. I needed to get to know them again and continue the search for the soul of a flower.

I’ll see you in the morning. Have a peaceful and safe weekend. We might head out to the Mass MoCa Museum tomorrow, a good place to escape the heat.

These flowers are new to me. I am trying to remember their names.

These make for a beautiful backdrop.

These make me think of a marching band, beautiful and proud.

There is all kinds of beauty in that small bed.

My poppies are graceful, quiet, meditative, and beautiful meditation flowers.

Like so many flowers, poppies have a rich and touching history:

A poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of Remembrance. Shortly after losing a friend in Ypres in 1915, a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, was inspired by the sight of poppies growing in battle-scarred fields to write his now-famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields.’