Violet (September)

They are described here, “Underfoot the violet, crocus and hyacinth with rich inlay Broidered the ground” (John Milton) and here “ I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows / Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine” (William Shakespeare). In both places we look down, in both places the flower serves as cloth design, and as sign of nature’s goodness. This sense informs the later words “O wind, where have you been, / That you blow so sweet? / Among the violets / Which blossom at your feet,” (Christina Rossetti) though notice how the eco-connection is made between all the elements, including the element known as homo sapiens. This ‘gazed-upon’ affirmation of individual existence is heralded in the following words: “A violet by a mossy stone / Half-hidden from the eye!- / Fair as a star, when only one / Is shining in the sky.” (William Wordsworth) And then we have the unforgettable short poem by Graham Nunn, “Violets at Vaucluse”, here presented in its entirety: “Quite over-canopied / The nodding violets grow / Underfoot richly embroidered / Fair as stars half-hidden from my eye. / Where have they been / All my life / Which blossom at my feet?” Here the flowers return again, the same but different somehow. We see them just as they are, but in a new arrangement. Same flowers, different order, another year. In the years before Rossetti we find “Yet there it was content to bloom, / In modest tints arrayed; / And there diffused its sweet perfume, /  Within the silent shade.” (Jane Taylor) This praise of the violet’s special sensory effects is lost in modern times: “Not entirely crazy / though a little bit insane / outside in the daylight / mind runs as clear as rain.” (Gina Morrone) Or else is incidental to someone’s psychodrama, as when “Stumbling through burial grounded luminescence. / Cauldron mixed medicine of narcissus and headaches. / Adorned with the violets of Hades; / reminiscing of past redemptions; / Stirring Styx with a gnawed off finger. /Still tastings of ashes and blood; leaving portents in teacups.”(Gregory Burgess) It takes the originality of an Andrew Slattery to make it new: “There it was content to bloom, / Not entirely crazy / outside in the daylight/ my mind clear as rain. / Stumbling through burial grounded luminescence, / Adorned with violets of Hades, / I tasted their ash and blood / leaving a storm in a teacup.” Incomparable results laid open in this excerpt from his 100-page prize-winning “Ultraviolet”.