journal of a writing man

writingsof a writing man

Anywhere but Skye

Violets in the garden
Tucked away in a corner of the garden is a patch of semi-wild violets. Not quite dog-violets yet, but each year sees them revert a little closer to these most retiring and delicate of wild flowers.

Goodness knows why I should suddenly think of them today but think of them I did, and was obliged to don my warm coat and go out to check they are all right. And they are. The corner they occupy is untouched, and there are still some leaves to be seen, though the flowers are long gone. I'm glad I had the foresight to take a photograph in early summer this year against these drear December days.

I feel more at home with these simple flowers than the gaudy ones, happier with the unassuming than the showy.

I've been searching my brain for poetic references to the violet and I know there's a perfect one yet I don't quite have the key for it. It'll come, probably in the middle of the night. Memory searches often work like that.

For such a bashful little plant it has been noted by most poets who have an eye for the quiet as well as the grand. I'm struck, though, by the odd pairings I came across in the course of my search. If my memory is to be trusted it seems that violets are seldom treated on their own, but are matched against more vigorous flowers. Shelley pairs them with the wind-flower. Shakespeare, of course, balances them with the daisy, but he always made a mixed pie of things. I prefer to keep my images single, my metaphor simple and under control.

In the course of my search I remembered a visit when I was a boy to a nursery garden specializing in violas. Bed after bed of the delicate little things, all possible tints of blue were there, including variants into almost-yellow and nearly-green. I recall very strongly the powerful pungent aroma of the propagating house. Not the violas themselves - so far as I know they have no scent, and Shelley agrees with me so I must be right. No, it was years and years of old men practicing the secret arts of persuading bud and seed to spark into life. Composts. Potions. The smell of country men. How odd. That's a memory that is probably close to fifty years old and yet if I close my eyes, twiggle my nose and keep very still, I can smell it now, strong as ever, sun-baked, motionless.

The old guy who owned the nursery was kind enough to give me a brochure for the British Viola Society, with a colour illustration on the front. A valued gift, because good colour illustrations were still at that time quite rare in post-war Britain. I kept that brochure for years and years. Search as I may, I have no recollection what happened to it.

Memory is an uncontrollable thing. My task today was supposed to be searching out and writing up field notes of my trip to the Isle of Skye. Instead, a chance particle of the good old randoms resuscitated a memory of a kindly old man, a sunny afternoon, and shy little flowers that have been quietly and secretly flowering in the summers of my mind all these years.

December 2, 1998

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