Science And Expression Poem by Douglas Scotney

Amid the buzz and delight of a 'hundred' bees,
orange poppies, pink ones, dark pink and white.
Reds with a black cross at the centre
Reds with a black cross with white tips.
An orange with a black cross.
A red with no cross and an orange the same.
An orange with a white cross but no red the same.
What's the game?

A white-fringed dark pink with white cross.
A pink with a white and a light pink the same.

Not a red with a white cross;
not a poppy you could call Swiss.
Is that amiss?

No pink with a black (let alone a black with white tips) .

A dark pink with white fringe with a black cross with white tips.
They're growing apart and I'm saving the seed,
to see, what they might eventually breed.

The odd orange with black cross with white tips;
most oranges with merely black.

Light pinks with a dark pink cross.
Pinks and oranges with white crosses or none.
Oranges with white fringes with white crosses
and dark pinks with white fringes with white ones.
No reds with white fringes.
All whites just white.

Naming a favorite will do no harm.
It was the one whose seed I'm saving.
Any just-opened one has charm.
That light pink one with white cross just opening there
with little caterpillar stretched from pillar to flimsy post,
and eating its pollen for goodness sake,
that one takes the cake.

Dismantling a flower,
each of the four petals of oranges and reds with black crosses
has at its base an arm of the cross.
I'll bet you a billion
you won't not call them Brazilian.