Reflections

Purple Thistle
I know it must have grown in Texas since the first crack of time, but until I became aware of it, it did not exist for me. One might say that of many
things in life.
…
The purple thistle arrives by magic the first week in September, full blown, having pushed its way through the thin, rocky soil and low sandstone
embankments. A spiky candelabra of surprising elegance and baroque complexity, it stands alone midst isolated rocks or surrounded only by its
own kind in sweeping blankets of breathtaking color against a background of russet stone. Its outstretched arms reaching to the sky.
The early stage of summer growth seems not to intrude on the consciousness of the traveler in the rushed blur of peripheral vision. Suddenly,
inexplicably, the pale grey-green ripens into purple, at first misty and then, as September winds down into October, intense and royal – a color
anachronistic in an otherwise unremarkable and monotonous landscape of summer-dried grass and endless miles of fence posts.
It defies the normal vegetative need for nutrients and moisture, seeking instead to sink its shallow, tenacious roots into the cracks of crumbling
sandstone, drawing its strength from the character of the land – hard, unyielding, dry, rough. It is, after all, only a weed without even the
distinction of a wildflower.
In truth, it does not bloom in the flush of life, but in its dying. Close inspection reveals a stalk dried and with its lower leaves already dead. So its
magnificence is not a bloom at all but a fearless harbinger of death and a last, great paven to life. At first frost, it turns brown and disappears as
quietly from one’s consciousness as it appeared. The heads shatter, drop their seeds and carry back to the sandstone cracks and rocky soil their
special gift. Its incomparable beauty becomes once again a secret memory in the mind of nature.
After the lush rapture of spring wildflowers and the dry sweetness of summer grasses, it comes briefly, gloriously in the fall, gifting us with its
strangely haunting beauty for far too short a time. Living on the bittersweet edge of time, I claim it for my own. Thorny, irreverent, unexpected,
sharp, alternately regal and humble, ugly and beautiful, tough and fragile. I wait for its coming each fall with great anticipation and hopes for a
bountiful crop. Every year it is a surprise and a joy – a special, long-awaited friend.
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