Of flowers and stray thoughts on Mother’s Day
By Niharika Mookerjee
NEW YORK: When children carry handfuls of wild flowers, picked wantonly with their small hands, for their moms, dads and teachers as gifts of thanks, we know it’s a miniature ceremony that will later be cherished as a warm memory as they grow older and gradually leave the brooding nest.
So when golden sunlight and a few showers later, the iris bloomed in the tiny courtyard, I was glad for its promise of friendship that it has symbolized. A pearly white feather encircled by the palest blue, much like a blue rose. Wispy and fragile like thin crepes with just a dazzle of fragrance.
Year after year, without much ado, they simply resurface from the dead earth just when we’ve given up on life, on color, and the warm winds from the south. In the midst of winter, they lie brown, broken, and wooden to touch, with not a stir of life in them, open to the storms and the snow, with no scurrying need for cover.
And then with the first shower of mild, forgetful rain on spring leaves, the stems span out into an emerald green, wide and inviting to the soft sunlight, mixed with the hurried spray of rain drops. And the buds peep out gently, white streaked in blue, a slight promise of grace in the midst of teeming urban sprawl. “From the center of my life came a great fountain, deep blue shadows on azure seawater,†writes the poet, Louis Gluck in “The Wild Irisâ€.
Moving in slow ancestral motions since ancient times, the hyacinths are the first to nod their pretty heads in spring, heavy with a dewy perfume, pink, blue and lavender from the patch of dry, cracked ground. Delicate and tender though they seem, susceptible to shudder at the first shatter of rainfall, they reveal an uncommon resilience and an indomitable will to resurrect despite little care. The first hopeful sign of the spinning seasons.
As quick to respond to life’s heady warmth are the gold of the bouquet, the filigreed roses in blushed tones of red, yellow and pink. A brush of dew and light, and in rambunctious profusion they bloom, heedless to their numbers that could rob them of the beauty, which usually belongs to the singular and the rare.
Not ones to be demure, they simply thrive in abundance and are the substance of a beloved’s dream and longing. But watch out for the nefarious ants that feed on its leaves, in the “bed of its crimson joy, and his dark secret love, does thy life destroy†to recollect “The Sick Rose†by the English poet, William Blake.
Now the foxgloves and snapdragons are the stewards of the wilderness. The wind carries its seeds and in uncontained joy they spring, sometimes behind a garden tap, or a craggy stone or even the corner of a door. Tall, sprightly, and dainty like the delicate fingers of a woman’s velvet glove, with bell-shaped blossoms stooping abashedly, they attract swarms of garnet butterflies and bees. Ancient folklore has the foxgloves steeped deep in the world of fairies and secret enchantment while snapdragons with their magical ability to open and close are a child’s sheer delight.
In the secret silence of a welter of trees is the substance of nature’s extravagant beauty and miracles growing in scallops. These are the beating hearts of the wisteria plumes. Delicate, pastel and a translucent blue, they quiver like a trembling waterfall in the lush cologne of vivid green.
Growing wild in forests or draped in wistfulness over white picket fence, they communicate their exquisite beauty to the world of humanity in graceful forms of folding teardrops. But don’t be fooled by the flimsy appearance, they are nature’s immortal heirlooms, “the hope with which we expect tomorrow,’’ to quote Robert Louis Stevenson.
A staple in the American backyard, under tall pokeberries, thistle and daisies which birds love, are baskets of petunias, perched on the porch, a happy bunch of radiant flowers with not a speck of introspection. But beware. Hit by a sheet of rain, they wither and the colors change. All is certainly not what it seems in the realm of flowers and the beauty lies in its splash of surprise.
Unlike the marked boundaries of human habitation, nature refuses to be defined. The earth has an immense capacity to support a great deal of life in little space. Weeds, wild flowers and upright zenias scramble their way across the silage in a riotous splendor of independence. Mow them or thresh them, Black-eyed Susans planted in one flower bed will suddenly appear mysteriously in another corner. Some plants that lie dormant for years, waiting deep within the ground, may after many a spring, bob up to everyone’s astonishment.
Sometimes, flowers stashed in mega department stores lose their luster under the harsh fluorescence, but when transplanted in a pot or backyard are rebirthed with a little care and nurturing. All it needs is just a drop of kindness from its owner. Pink hydrangeas with lace like petals that wilt in the grocery shop, return to bloom, luminous like armloads of chiffon, soaked in sunlight and fresh air. They are the most rejoicing sight of abuse that heals itself given the opportunity. In the words of Psalm 17.5, “my feet have held to your paths, my feet have not slipped.â€
It is no wonder that on a solitary walk around curving lane, the myriad waves of beaming blossoms speak to us as beloved friends, some tranquil and bright, others happy and sad. And the soul that is in tune with its music will even find easeful rest in a barren piece of stony rock covered with moss and lichen, studded with the jeweled green of ivy, at times, broken by cups of mushroom. They are nature’s own verdant necklace gleaming in the abundant blessings of sunlight and moist soil.
And just as there are no eggs in last year’s nest, the floral drapes and colors keep changing, fading back to the earth without any need for replanting or renovating. In search of another sunbeam, they lie in happy resignation. They speak to us, if we speak to them. And under life’s ebb and flow of family and friends, they are a resolute cure of the lonely heart. As simple as the words of the painter, from the French movie, S`eraphine, “When I feel sad, I go for a walk in the country and I touch the trees, I talk to the birds, the flowers, the insects, and I always feel better.â€
To contact the author, e-mail:niharikam@americanbazaaronline.com