Can you imagine? I found the first violets when I walked up the hills!
They were almost invisible (I helped one out from under the leaves) - real messagers of spring!
These were dog violets (viola canine) - so they do not smell - but though I am very keen on the fragrance of flowers, this time I had nothing to nag but was just happy.
Of course I didn't pick them - because though the weather is really cold I saw the first courageous bees - and they will need all the nectar they can find.
I don't know whether they are still in fashion, but as pupils we had in Germany friendship books, we called them "Poesiealbum" - one wrote a more (or less) wise saying into it, and painted or pasted a glittering picture beside it.
Very popular was this one:
"Be like the little violet in the moss, modest, demure and pure/ and not like the proud rose/ which always wants to be adored!"
(Well - I like roses :-)
And I suspect that the anonymous poet didn't know much about botany: the violet is a very doggedly plant, with a high urge to to spread itself out. Yes, they occupied almost the whole world, both hemispheres.
And I always think of C.G.Jung and his theory of "the Shadow", when I look at all those people striving for power or world domination - whose favourite flower was the modest violet: Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Winston Churchill.
And many others.
Welcome to the colours now, and to the fragrances later.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Helen! "Fragrance later" - true - and shining a light on my old problem: impatience.
DeleteI try to learn that lesson, often: One step after the other.
The first herald of Spring? Such courageous blossoms, and courageous bees. Let's hope there is more where they came from in the coming days for it's always nice to know the seasons are progressing in timely fashion.
ReplyDeleteThe Posesiealbum had a similar incarnation here when I was young - they were called autograph books but there wasn't much evidence of artistry and charming poetry within ours, from memory. A lot of "I got the last page first!" and "Roses are red ..." etc. My own favourite went:
I had a pair of trousers,
A jolly shade of green,
I wore them in the summertime
And kept them bright and clean.
Now autumn is upon us,
My pants are turning gold,
And soon they'll fall and blow away
And leave me bare and cold.
Well, Pip, here the seasons are so fickle: after a (subdued) flood we had a gale, and now a few snowflakes - nature celebrates carnival.
ReplyDelete"Autograph books" (I still have mine, somewhere, in a chest on the attic) were fun, but also an instrument of power - whom you gave it to, whom not).
I love your favourite poem! Sounds almost like a "Lied". And is very graphic :-)
It reminds me of a (pea-brained) chorus song we had to rehearse again and again at school (!):
"If someone wears trousers in the colour of fire trees
and rose hip red socks,
then he can dance as he likes,
it doesn't give him any sniffs, sniffs, sniffs,
sniffy, sniffy, sniffy, sniffy, sniffy sniff (this repeated a hundredfold, awful! In German it was even more awful: "rümpf, rümpf, rümpf - rittirittiritti rümpf rümpf rümpf...").
I utterly prefer your rebellious individuality encouraging "poetry", hahaha.