Pansies
Every year, it seems, I will choose
these paper-thin blooms to plant
near the front door, ranged in two
oblong pots glazed deepest cobalt blue.
Cheery, kitten-faced. A grey
morning fog cannot blunt
their exuberance or stay
stray flutters of breeze at raucous play,
bending their light heads on green
thin stems. Somehow, they never break.
Not stiff or somber but serene,
they lift me up if I feel glassine.
Fragile themselves, pansies strongly please—
offer rich color, solace—true heart’s ease.
Leslie Schultz
For me, color is strong medicine, distilled and concentrated. Like poetry. It is the medicine I am especially in need of this season. I thought I might write a poem for today titled “Patriots,” but that did not come. Instead in this season where I am finding too much dissimulation, unintentional buffoonery, and empty rhetoric in the public realm–maybe you are, too?–I thought I might offer some more grounded images of red, white, and blue along with a few simple words.
Incidentally, I remember learning at age eight that pansies are also called “Heart’s Ease.” Remember that passage in Little Women, that perennial classic, when Beth embroiders a pair of slippers for old Mr. Laurence, covering the toes with pansies, and he refers to them by their antique name? It was about the same time I learned the word “glassine.” Today, I learned that glassine, for all its translucence, lightness, and seeming frailness is actually quite strong, protective, and resistant to staining. Today, I will think about how to cultivate those qualities in myself. To that end, I am going to bring up some of my brilliantly colored fabrics and begin working out the design for a new quilt. Later in the year, Tim and I will fill the empty containers in the garden with seeds from Seed Savers that we started inside and which are starting to sprout. Should be a riot of color by July.
Wishing you a splendid day of bright hues and ease and good weather, wherever you are, inside or out!
Until tomorrow, Leslie
