Figure 1 – Poppy, Salem. MA (c) DE Wolf 2020

Back in May I commented about a Memorial Day like No OIther, evoking, of course, the poppies of Flanders Field. A couple of weeks ago I photographed the poppy of Figure 1 by the Ferry dock in Salem, MA. I love poppies and always go out of the way searching for them – here after permission entering a private garden.

Poppies are associated as  a symbol of sleep, peace, and death: Sleep, obviously, because the opium extracted from them is a sedative, and death because of the blood-red color of the red poppy.  This goes back to Greek and Roman myths, where poppies were used as offerings to the dead, those who slept eternally. We cannot deny either their luscious shape or seductive and intense color. 

This symbolism appears in both the book and the movie The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. There, a magical poppy field threatens Dorothy and her entourage with endless sleep. Will they be thwarted in their quest. All heroes must be challenged with temptation. Who can forget the cackling voice of Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West? She was really mean and scary to young Davie’s imagination.

“And now my beauties, something with poison in it I think, with poison in it, but attractive to the eye and soothing to the smell . . . poppies, poppies, poppies will put them to sleep.”
—The Wicked Witch of the West, The Wizard of Oz (1939)