May 9: Where are the swallows?

Swarmed by blackflies

while picking violets

I welcome the northeast wind.

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May 20: Violets

When I was a child, my grandmother, whom I called Nana Ruth or Nan, would send me out in spring to pick a bouquet of white violets from the lawn. That was my thing. A fistful fit perfectly in a special little vase she had.

 

I can't mow the lawn--

the masses of white violets

remind me of Nan.

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May 5: Forget-me-nots

Where did this lovely, solo tulip come from?

The grass in our shady back yard is still too patchy to consider mowing, unlike the lush, pocket-sized front lawn, but I've been enjoying seeing what has popped up there this spring besides the slow-growing grass. Here and there little ferns unfurl. Pockets of vivid green moss deepen in color. A single white tulip, perhaps inadvertently planted by a squirrel, stands surrounded by a scattering of little white violets. Forget-me-nots bloom by the shed, reminding me of how many would grow in my grandmother's garden when I was a kid, those clusters of tiny pink, blue, and white flowers that spread further each year. Soon, the grass will be tall enough, but there will be too many flowers blooming back there for me to bear to mow them.

In the unmown lawn
forget-me-nots once again
inspire memories.

May 25: Purple

For today's post I'm primarily going to let these photos of what's blooming in my yard right now speak for themselves. Clearly I have a penchant for violet, though soon all these blossoms will be joined by frilly white peonies and the reds, oranges, and pinks of daylilies. With temperatures continuing in the 80s, these cool, soothing shades of purpley-blue against the rich green background of the lawn seem just right, just what the eye needs.

I've identified most closely with the color purple for as long as I can remember--I've always felt lucky that my birthstone is amethyst, a purple form of quartz, and that the flower associated with my birth month is the violet. So perhaps unconsciously I've loaded up my flower beds with this color. If you study chakras (the body's energy spots) and their associated colors, the violet-indigo-blue end of the spectrum covers the crown, third eye, and throat--head and neck, basically--and represent good things like oneness with the divine, peace, balance, intuition, and verbal expression. Without getting too New Age-y, I like to think that we are drawn to particular colors at certain times because we need something from them. Today I feel a calming connection to the colors of my flowers, as well as the desire to verbally express that uplifting connection with a haiku.

Drawn to these purple
flowers, my hot head is soothed,
cool balance returned.

May 11: White Violets

When I was a kid I loved to pick the little white violets on the front lawn before my grandfather mowed. They were ephemeral and therefore all the more valued. According to my grandmother's birthday book, violets are the flower corresponding to my birth month, February. So I felt an affinity for them and saw it as my duty to save as many as I could from the mower's blade. My grandmother had a special, miniature vase that held my violet bouquet perfectly. I would take my 10x hand lens from its handmade suede case and closely examine the violets' tiny purple faces as if they were secret flower fairies that only I knew about.

This time of year, though I mow my front lawn regularly, I hesitate to mow in back where the patchy green is sprinkled with dainty constellations of those same white violets. By the time they're gone by, my lawn is about eight inches high and sprouting frilly clumps of ferns and other interesting flora. Last year I ended up not mowing till fall.

In my unkempt lawn
sprays of small white violets grow
beautifully wild.