Reflections - cover2
Selected Writings & Artwork by Harriett Copeland Lillard
Selected Writings & Artwork by Harriett Copeland Lillard
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Purple Thistle<br />
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<br />
things in life.<br />
…<br />
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<br />
embankments. A spiky candelabra of surprising elegance and baroque complexity, it stands alone midst isolated rocks or surrounded only by its<br />
own kind in sweeping blankets of breathtaking color against a background of russet stone. Its outstretched arms reaching to the sky.<br />
The early stage of summer growth seems not to intrude on the consciousness of the traveler in the rushed blur of peripheral vision. Suddenly,<br />
inexplicably, the pale grey-green ripens into purple, at first misty and then, as September winds down into October, intense and royal – a color<br />
anachronistic in an otherwise unremarkable and monotonous landscape of summer-dried grass and endless miles of fence posts.<br />
It defies the normal vegetative need for nutrients and moisture, seeking instead to sink its shallow, tenacious roots into the cracks of crumbling<br />
sandstone, drawing its strength from the character of the land – hard, unyielding, dry, rough. It is, after all, only a weed without even the<br />
distinction of a wildflower.<br />
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<br />
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<br />
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<br />
special gift. Its incomparable beauty becomes once again a secret memory in the mind of nature.<br />
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<br />
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,<br />
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<br />
bountiful crop. Every year it is a surprise and a joy – a special, long-awaited friend.<br />
˜<br />
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