Violets as Gentle Intruders
What are you doing there?
I did not plant you there.
I do not want you there.
I made that flowerbed for Pansies
and Golden Poppies.
It was to be the patio showpiece .
When you sent up your gentle
but obstreperous leaves up in the bed
I planned to weed you.
In the morning on my weeding bench
you held up a delicate blossom
as a "await a minute hand."
A blossom that belongs to Elizabeth Taylor eyes
and remind me of Eliza Doolittle
with her struggle.
You are not supposed to be there
you were not planned but
came uninvited anyway.
And as I look at your gentle face
and great beauty and know of your courage,
I ask myself who can deny a violet?
Seed of my loins sowed in careless passion
you were not suppose to be
planted in that fertile bed.
There were other plans for that bed
which was to be fallow
to catch a breath
But when I thought of weeding
I remembered the fragile,
but determined violet .
And when you arrive you shall beViolet
and hope for Taylor's eyes and Doolittle's
humble humanness.
For I know not how
to say no to a violet
whose courage melts all objections.
Doug Minnis March 2012