photo by Ekko
Who gives flowers these names?
A rose by any other name is still a rose.
Not so the humble pansy.
Some call it heartsease
Never thought at all why so
Til with the flowering
Of our pansies
I realized what heartsease means.
These flowers with their lovely faces
Ease the heart.
It’s that simple,
That’s why flowers that have no care
Have no feelings for us
Just smile in deep purple velvet
Outrageous bright yellow and
Sweetly gentle orange
Smile.
The garden starts to flourish
As the snow diminishes.
We have colour and we have life.
I can choose some posies for my room.
Daffodils in the green vase are fun,
But too late for St David’s Day.
I search the cupboard and the cabinet
For special pansy vase – from Myrthr Mawr.
Find it, pick the blooms, dead-head the rest –
They’ll bloom again.
I have my pansies, my heartsease and can be quiet again.
photographer unknown.
24 comments:
Nice thoughts Mimi.Pansies were my choice of flowers for my first sweetheart and she kept one to use as a bookmar. I wonder what happened to her, the pansy not the girl.
bookmark silly
professor Dumbick
Nice poem, but I'm pretty sure those are violas. Pansies have more petals, I think.
Melton, they're examples of viola tricolor, the wild pansy which is usually called heartsease. As no doubt you know, it's rather like hawks and falcons, every pansy is a viola but not all violas are pansies - as far as I know they all have the same number of petals, but the garden pansies have wider flowers. I'm not quite sure which sort Mimi had in mind, but these are heartseases where I come from, so there:)
Ah. lovely Mimi. Pansies are very cheery. I'd never heard them called heartsease before, or at least I'd never connected it.
Zeph, hope you are feeling better.
Guitou, I've got a pressed-pansy bookmark, not sure where it came from... maybe, just maybe...
Ok, ok, I'm not trying to start a panzykrieg. Anyway, I think I'm wrong. It seems that pansies have more variation in quantity of petals, though they usually have the same number as violas.
Still a nice poem.
No, no pansykrieg intended! like many things horticultural it's very confusing. Plant-selling folks seem to say 'viola' to mean the sort of medium-sized ones, but actually they're all violas, including violets.
Pansies is one of those words that looks very odd when you've written it a few times.
It is a nice poem, sorry Mimi, I thought I'd said. I like the bit about the vase, a telling detail.
Violas make a nice noise, too.
Pinker,
it's such a small world isn'it? whomever it came from
you should keep it preciously as a talisman for happiness.
Very sweet, Mimi.
Guitou, good choice - more men should learn to give non-obvious flowers.
Question for everyone: do you pronounce them vie-olas or vee-olas? I've never been sure.
flowers:vie
stringed instruments: vee
I think.
Well your common orchestral folk call the intrument a vee-ola, but then there are some people who try to sound posh and call them vie-olas, so I think it's sort of interchangeable. For some reason the viola players always used to be the butt of all the jokes, so they tended to be called much more colourful names.
I'm pretty sure the flowers are vie-olas.
"inStrument" - oops. I blame this wireless keyboard.
In French, they're called "pensées" which, you'll have to admit, sounds infinitely better.
Lovely evocation of spring, mimi.
pensée = much nicer meaning as well
Thank you for liking the pansies.
I'm not an authority on anything horticultural but I think with the vee/vie debate it also has a thing about the last syllable.
Viii-olas are the flower for sure but Vie-olas compete with vie-Olas. But what do I know? I have never played a stringed instrument and never willingly done the whole pricking out and nurturing teeeny little planties.
Right now I am wondering how much the newsworthy volcano has to do with the most spectacular sunset I have ever ever seen in my entire life.
Oh and if anyone wants to read Heartsease, then here you go:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heartsease-Puffin-Books-Peter-Dickinson/dp/0140304983/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271634466&sr=1-1
But of course then you will have to read the rest of Peter Dickinson - go read. Go figure and go think, a lot.
really nice thoughts.....as said in my first comment but that didn't ring a pinkerbell did it? Think guys, penser, mais penser donc.
Gui: pensees, yep got that. Sweetheart - well, heartsease is the same - sort of. Not sure about the bookmark unless a crushed thought is like your crushed aaaaah pense is that!
Or am I way off the line?
By the way I don't know how to do accents here, but you know what I mean.
Wild plum, blackthorn, sloe;
St John's Wort, Hypericum, Rose of Sharon;
CowParsley, Bad Man's Oatmeal, Hedgecarrot.
There is a meal in the names, before you even pluck the the things you mean.
Whatever Meaning might be.
But you need strong dentures for meaning.
Those are all plants you can make wine from, aren't they?
Only if you want to die.
The viola makes a nice sound but I always had trouble tucking it under my chin. Boom-boom...
Nice.
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