violets

on the way home from work one night

Out of my peripheral the evening star pulls my eye and punctuates my vision. I turn westward toward the soft glow of the sunset past as I walk. Curiosity makes a scouring full circle of the dome overhead an absolute necessity, and I do so in step with the noises of giggling girls coming from behind. My head moves instinctively towards their location, pivoting unnaturally over my shoulder to survey, as young men do, the origin of a woman's voice. As I come back around to that original distraction, a pine cone obscures my view and draws my attention downward to the mirror beneath my feet. A field to squirrels and a forest to ants; a patch of tiny violets growing on a bed of brown needles seemingly forever endeavored to put the sky underfoot. During the day I’ve seen them popping in glorious blue and dancing in shimmering light filtering through the wispy branches above, but now they’ve fortuitously duplicated the muted dusk. And then...

Roar after roar, the passing cars throttle to edge out one another for the great race of masculine superiority dulls my senses…for someplace remote.