Tonight's Poet Corner: Violet
Violet by Belinda Roddie It wasn't just the flowers we picked, or the amethysts we collected, or the wine we drank, or the eggplant we sliced into thin enough strips to fry to a crisp and crunch on during a hot Gulf afternoon. It was also my new button-up shirt, your hairpin, and your lipstick. A color choice some might call "bold" was simply natural to you. We knew that the sun above us, while giving us life, would also grant the world as we knew a permanent, scorching sleep. Red to orange to yellow, though who knows if green grass would ever grow again under a sky that was no longer blue or indigo. But for now, we had the violets. In buckets, in barrels, wrapped in ribbons like gifts for nymphs, tucked away behind ears and hiding secrets in their fragile necks of vases, muted forever. And growing wild. Born wild. And meant to wither in their wildness. We always had the violets.
