The Octopus and the Poppy

The Octopus lived in a house in the blue,
With windows of abalone,
And eight little chairs and a lavender stair
And a garden of anemone.

The Poppy lived on the hill above,
Where the warm west wind blew free,
In a tangerine gown and a small gold crown,
Looking out at the marvelous sea.

“Oh, what do you see?” called the Octopus,
As she waved from the foam below.
“I see gulls in flight and the moon at night,
And hills where the tall grasses grow.”

“And what do you see?” called the Poppy down,
As she danced at the edge of the land.
“I see silver fish and whatever I wish,
And castles made out of sand.

“I see forests of kelp where the sea stars sleep,
And crabs in their sideways shoes,
And a green little cave where the cold waves behave
In seventeen shades of blue.”

“Seventeen!” cried the Poppy. “Oh my!
I have only the blue of the sky!”
“Then come down to me and I’ll show you the sea.”
“I cannot,” the Poppy called. “Why—

“My toes are roots and my hat is a bloom,
And I’m terribly fond of the sun.”
“Well, I cannot climb to your golden hill—
Not even with legs eight-plus-one!”

So the Poppy sighed on the hillside high,
And the Octopus sighed in the sea,
For what could be done when the earth loved the sun
And the ocean refused to be free?

Then over the water the evening came,
With pockets all purple and deep,
And the Moon hung round as a silver pound
While the little brown sandpipers peeped.

The Octopus gathered an agate bright,
A shell and a ribbon of weed,
A pebble of gray and some foam from the bay,
And tied them with sea-grass seed.

She placed them all in a pearly shell
And whispered, “Now off you go!”
And a kindly wave with a tumble and rave
Tossed them up to the shore below.

The Poppy laughed when she found the gifts
At the foot of her golden hill.
Then she shook her head till her petals shed
And the wind took one with a will.

It fluttered and flittered and flew through the air,
Past the gull and the bumblebee,
Till orange and small, like a sunset’s shawl,
It landed upon the sea.

The Octopus caught it with three of her arms,
While five clapped happily,
And she wore that petal beside her heart
In her house of abalone.

And every spring when the Poppies return
And paint all the hillsides gold,
The Octopus rises at morning tide
To hear what the flowers have told.

They speak of the bees and the warm brown earth,
Of coyotes and stars and rain,
While she tells of whales and the wandering snails
And the songs of the deep-sea plain.

And sometimes at dusk, when the fog rolls in
And nobody quite can see,
The Poppy leans west from her hilltop nest
And the Octopus rises from the sea.

One cannot follow the other home.
They’ve known that from the start.
But the sea brings shells to the Poppy’s hill,
And the wind brings petals to the Octopus’s heart.

So if you should wander the California coast
Where the orange flowers grow,
Look down through the blue when the tide is new—
You never quite know what you’ll see.

Perhaps eight arms will wave from the foam,
Perhaps one flower will wave from the lea,
For the strangest of friends may live at the ends

of the very same land and sea.