A cupful of colorful pansies is a good thing with which to whisk away the winter doldrums. Brought by a friend, I put the happy little blossoms in a pale green cup trimmed with gold and placed them on a table where morning sunshine beams would poke inquisitive fingers amongst the petals. All this on the fourth of February when one can find practically nothing outside in bloom except a dandelion or two in some sheltered place.
These pansy blossoms, some yellow and purple, some purple and blue, one dusty rose, were so large I was curious enough to get my ruler to see just how large. Three and a half inches across!
The nursery variety pansy has surely been bred and hybridized upward from the Bird's-foot-violet, also called a wild pansy. There was a stretch of my early school path that was bordered thickly with these wild pansies. Most of them were all pale blue, but some, the prettiest we thought, were the ones that had three lower petals of smooth pale blue with the two upper petals the texture and color of purple violet. They grew on a thin-soiled hillside sloping down to the river.
I would love to visit the spot every spring but the present owner of the territory has fenced the large acreage. You get knocked for a loop if you touch the fence and you have to have a certain plastic card to open the electronic gate. However, I know of another place where they grow, also a sloping hillside, about five miles south of Fredericktown on Highway 72. The trouble with this site is the almost-no-shoulder to park on. But sometimes just knowing where they are and that it is their time to bloom is semi-satisfactory.
With my cupful of pansies before me and one in hand, I can omit the "semi" from in front of satisfactory and spend rare moments of full satisfaction just thinking and marveling. By the way, in Kate Greenaway's "Language of Flowers," pansies mean "thoughts." I suppose if you send someone a bouquet of them it means you're thinking of them. In my case such "thoughts" must mean reflection and contemplation.
First, there is the subtle fragrance, almost like jonquils but not quite. You have to hold the pansy close to your nose to get the full impact. And your first thought is that of a classy lady who does not overwhelm you with her perfume but has just the right amount to draw you closer. And then there is that amazing bi-color. Why are the two top petals always a different hue? And why is the center part of a flower so well marked? In the pansy's case, the center looks as if a butterfly has already lit there, for there is a four-winged darker area shaped like one. The "head" of this "butterfly" is the vital part for assuring survival of the species, for there are the pistil and the stamens. It is right where the bees and butterflies head for any nectar they can find, and hence fertilization. Pansies blooming outside now would have to depend on the wind to transport the pollen, I fear.
As I sit on for a while, holding the pansy in my hand, rubbing the purple velvet against my cheek, I close my eyes and fancy I can hear the Pipes of Pan.
What a leap of imagination you might say. I offer you as explanation the fact that the first syllable of a word that forms a word of its own often sets my mind off on another tangent. Pan. Why don't I think of pie pan, cake pan, cornbread pan or even pandemonium instead of Pipes of Pan? I think it is because I'm sitting there in the sunshine with a pansy in my hand, a far cry from pandemonium. And Pan was the great Greek god of the forest and meadows where wild flowers grow, and he, half man, half goat, according to legend, invented the Pipes of Pan by cutting a number of hollow reeds of different lengths, tying them together and blowing across them to make beautiful music.
Even without opening my eyes, I realize the sound I hear is only the muted February wind playing with the whistling window. So reality settles around me, but reality as soft as the sunshine on my shoulders when I think, who painted the pansy? Who causes them to grow, unseeded by human hands, on wild mountain hillsides? Did someone just want to make it pretty for us while we dwell here on this planet of complexity? As Archibald Rutledge puts it, "There is more hope for humanity in a wild flower than in the tons of beef that might munch on it."
REJOICE!
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