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Violets of Late

© Dorothy Harris

I live in the metropolitan Washington, DC area where people plant pansies along with mums at this time of year. It's pretty amazing to me because I lived in much colder climates before now, and we planted pansies in April. With this same amazement and with the attempt to get back to normal, I bought some pansies and some mums for my front yard. However,things have not quite settled since September 11th. For some reason, the pansies just don't seem as bright, and the mums as hardy.

In preparation for Halloween festivities, people in the area have been informed that malls are a potential target today, and that if we want to take our children to malls for trick-or-treating (because it is much too dangerous to take them door-to-door), we are at our own risks. Many families opted for safe spaces for their children this Halloween. Some held block parties, some visited only family and friends, and some avoided the celebration altogether. Some malls are canceling activities, but others are going on with life as normal, so that the evil terrorists will not think that they have changed our lives.

But they have. It's difficult to even think of life as it was before the attacks. We may as well face it, we'll have to accept that we are a country whose face has changed because of war.

I entitled this essay Violets of Late, with reference to a poem by Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson. The poem is really a love poem, but it's opening reminds me of the way in which, although we are encouraged to think of normal and even sometimes pleasant things, it is difficulty to do so. She writes:

Violets

I had not thought of violets of late,
The wild, shy kind that springs beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
And thought of violets meant florists' shops
And bows and pins, and perfumed paper fine;
And garish lights, and mincing little fops
And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine

So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed
I had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams;
The perfect loveliness that God has made
Wild violets shy and heaven-mourning dreams.

It's as difficult to think of pansies and mums, of goblins and ghouls, of cider and apples this autumn just as it may have been for this author to think of Violets. Dunbar Nelson implies no particular reason as to why she has not thought of these things. However, because our safety is no longer a given, because our country is on high alert, because the sound of helicopters and the sight of military officials in DC are the norm, my mind is so far removed from what Dunbar Nelson describes as sweet, real things. It's easy to forget the fields, streams and "the perfect loveliness that God has made..." It is easy to forget the beauty of autumn - changing leaves, brisk walks, fresh cider and stew.

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