Christine's Violets

As part of her Writing Skills course OCA student Jane Moore was asked to write a piece of prose and a poem, she decided to use the same material twice experimenting within the two genres.

“The inspiration for the pieces is life writing and then the prose piece is transformed into a poem.  I like the idea of using life writing evidence and then transforming it.  The idea is that such a beautiful flower can grow in harsh weather conditions and in a north facing cold part of the garden.  A single flower head offers a colour and an exquisite aroma –  if one takes the time to look.  One can be feeling rather down and fed up and suddenly there is this link with nature albeit in a few seconds and a sense of thankfulness and surprise comes into existence from a simple plant that one’s neighbour brought around one morning and invited to plant out in the most inhospitable area in the garden and it flourished.”

Arriving Home

Ice falls and hits the windscreen and slides into a hopeless greyness. The Northney ditches are full from the high tide. The sea water laps onto the road. My anxiety is back. I pick my ears removing a skeletal layer of cells.

And arriving home I see the violets’ heads. Those dashes of deep purple create speckles of colour across a grey background and begin to vibrate. How do they flourish in that north-facing corner?

Christine appears in my imagination plants in hand, “I have these for you from my father’s Camberley garden. You can plant them anywhere.”

I point at the chilled northern corner, “Is that a suitable space?”

“Anywhere – they don’t care. I must go, Michael is expecting his tea.”

She disappears.

You brought me roots of violets and I planted them out and they grew and multiplied. I thought so strongly that nothing could grow in such a darkened space. I planted them out to see them fail.

I think to myself: “Christine your father’s violets have bloomed here in this little north facing darkened path – they thrive.”

The flower heads surprise me. They are dainty and musty yet so strong to blossoming in this space.

In the house the washing is on. The sculpture books shelved. The deep purple stays within me and the yielding of the heads tickles my rigid thinking until the smile reveals a yielding in the grey structure of my mind.

Christine’s Violets

Violet heads
Blooming in
February’s chill.
Counteract
My stiff necked stern
Unyielding viewpoint
Producing exact harshness,
Offering no suppleness
As is registered in your deep purples.
You grow in the coldest darkest northern corner.
You are
Unexpected beauty.
You create a re-visioning.
Violet head spaces
Created in my mind
Falling into
Inflexibility and hardness
Acknowledging new growth
Yielding towards petals, stems and leaves.
 
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Image Credit: Leanne Putt, OCA Graphic Designer.