Violet at the Creation

Posted on the 04 April 2014 by Wendyrw619 @WendyRaeW

Violet

Oh look at this big girl!  Today, she turns 12.  Violet is a singular spirit. . . and in honor of her day, this poem from oh so many years ago.  But it is still her!  Still Violet.

VIOLET AT THE CREATION

In April, before the clouds settled

their differences and the lake was still

nervous, she crawled into the garden

while a blue blackbird resembling nothing

more than a catfish sang arias

to give her cover. The apple-hipped

stepmother taught her a secret

game to fool the husband

who wore an egg-yolk jacket,

Dominion stitched in russet on the chest.

The pie-apple bride tossed

the little she high and her giggles

turned to pebbles dibblety dropped

until the husband raised an umbrella.

They tried on names like rumpled gowns.

Nanny goat called herself sloth

and humpback whale was torn

between winter wheat

and passenger pigeon.

Falcon christened himself

sapphire silence, blue jeweled

and unuttered, while she blew

spun glass through the straw

of her bones and plucked

her own name—Violet—from the new grass.

* And all gratitude to VoiceCatcher and Press 53, both of which published this poem.