Anyone who says

Sometime back in late March, maybe even early April, as I was on my way from my apartment building to the Cobble Hill gym, I saw some seedy-looking guy scattering poppy seeds across the glass-strewn soil of an abandoned lot. I don’t mean garden-store variety poppy seeds but the kind used for cooking. I stopped, stupefied and peered at him through the chain-link fence. “I don’t think that’s gonna work,” I said. I knew: I’d tried it one year back in Charlottesville. “Those things are treated or something.” He shrugged and kept scattering. “Don’t have anything to lose, do I?” Which was true enough. I smiled and went on my way. (Now here’s another anomaly—I’ve become friendlier since I left the South and moved to the Big City. See. Just like me, huh. Going against the current.) Weeks passed. I normally don’t go to that gym now, since the Brooklyn Heights location is closer to the yoga studio I’ve been going to. But today. Well, Rod’s in the city seeing his friend Todd and the day was just so pretty and I felt like wandering. So I headed on over to the Cobble Hill gym, passing my second favorite fruit stand, right next to the lot where I stopped dead in my tracks. Poppies! Hundreds of them! Red and pink and white and pink/white stripes and white with tinges of red, bright little heads popping up over the choked weeds. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, so unexpected. If I had a digital camera, which I don’t cause I’m too poor, I’d post it. But god. You’re just going to have to believe me. And anyone who says Brooklyn isn’t beautiful is fucking blind.