Written for:  dVerse Poets Pub – Poetics:  Purple Patch  (posted by sarahsouthwest)

“Usually, I linger over seed catalogues, making careful choices. My particular favourite is the Real Seed Company, a small set up which sends out little brown envelopes of heritage seeds. It feels so special! And what I love most is the names. I picture the original gardeners – broad-fingered men in corduroy trousers, no-nonsense women in wellies – and think they must have had some romance buried deep in their gardening souls, only waiting to blossom. Because these are not the names of vegetables – they’re chapter titles in a high fantasy epic, they’re fairy tales told on a dark winter evening, they’re spangles and sparkles…

So, tonight, I want you to plant in my poetry patch. Take a look at these vegetable names, choose a few, toss them in the rich soil of your imagination, and see what comes up. Maybe it will be a strange and wonderful plant. Maybe it will be a whimsical fairy tale. Maybe it will be a magical stream of consciousness.”

Black Beauty

Trail of Tears

Lazy housewife

Princess

Purple queen

Jacob’s cattle

The Czar

Wizard

Golden acre

Dazzling blue

Purple sword

Jack Ice

Reine des Glaces

Blue fire

Aurora

Tender and true

When the Purple Queen
gave birth to a princess,
everyone descended on
the palace with gifts
for the newborn, Alice.
The Wizard gifted the child
with a purple sword. Only
she could not use it, he declared,
until her eighteenth birthday.
As a child, Alice would take
out the sword, bored by school
work. She’d shake it
this way and that, swing
it around, but it was not
yet time. For years after,
the purple sword was forgotten
on a top shelf of Alice’s
closet. When she turned
eighteen, villagers from near
and far came to witness
the special magic of
the purple sword. It shone
in sunlight, an amethyst
blade. The princess picked
it up and directed it like
a baton. Darkly delicate
music filled the room.
When the moon is full,
they say the melody
still delights crowds
leaving behind a trail
of tears.

https://dversepoets.com/