In her nearly ninety years,
Nora Montgomery couldn’t remember
hillsides as solid with poppies
as the golden spring of 1978
after two years drought,
cows calving in dust.
Slopes alive, fences leaked
lovers and photographers
from all over—
a glorious reward
for enduring a dry nightmare
early in my career,
the foundation
of a young man’s confidence,
the religion he lived by.
drycrikjournal 
We first moved to Northern California in 1976 just about when the drought began. In 1978 as it broke, and the hills were green and covered in mustard and poppies, I was absolutely in awe of that beauty I had not yet seen.
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Nor I since.
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Absolutely astounding! I too remember the the California poppies blooming in abundance in the Sonora foothills as a boy . . . They and the lupen were my father’s favorites . . .
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