Persuaded to Poetry

 

Months ago,  I published “The Surprise of Tiny Purple Things“, an essay about Florida environmentalist Charles Torrey Simpson and a pair of shells I found tucked onto a Texas beach.   The shells, a deep, rich purple, are known in scientific circles as janthina janthina.  They are, in fact, elegant and tiny purple sea snails.  Simpson had found a literal raft of them in the Florida Keys, and his chronicle of his experience helped me identify my own tiny bits of purple. 

Almost immediately, one of my readers stopped by with a request.  Her love of all things purple had been stirred by the piece, and she wanted a “purple poem”.  I don’t think of myself as a poet, and I was reluctant to accede to her request.  As it turns out, she does think of me as a poet, and was convinced  I could produce the poem.

We went back and forth about it for a few days, teasing one another, until she finally became insistent.  “Please do give me that poem”, she said. “I know it’s in there, and can’t wait till you spit it out.” Wanting to be polite, but not having the vaguest idea what a purple poem might look like, I replied, “The poem, she is percolating. Or, should I say, “purple-ating”?

I didnt’ hear back from her, and assumed our discussion had ended, until this appeared just a few days later.

“Ahoy Shore,
Can you see my right foot a-tappin’?
Bet you know why.
I’ll give you a hint. It’s small and shiny and purple and yearns to be heard (or read). I cannot wait to hear its voice.”

I felt like a beginning fresco artist with the Medici breathing down my neck. I tried to put her off, saying,

“My dear ~ You can’t force the creative process! My few poems have had to sort of… ummm… emerge.
However: in the spirit of things, I can report that a phrase is now on the clipboard. “Amethyst breezes”. Nice, huh? And, just for you, a little ditty to tide you over, like an apple before dinner.”

There once was a small purple shell
that traveled the ocean’s deep swell.
It floated and blew
across seas green and blue,
in a hurry its story to tell!

And that, it seemed, was that. On the other hand, while my ”gentle reader” stopped talking about the poem, I didn’t stop thinking about it. For a while, I was caught by the phrase “amethyst breezes”. I started thinking about Georgia O’Keefe, and her vibrant colors. Then, I began mentally comparing her work to that of Steiglitz, wondering how “color” and “black and white” ever got together.   I fiddled a bit with the purple poem as a way of exploring the issue.

But Hurricane Dolly came along, with its threat to the Texas coast. It was time to start thinking about storm surge, and we all did – through Dolly, through Gustav, and finally with Ike. One day, looking at some photos of surge, and remembering what it was like after Allison coated everything in sight with her layer of gray mud, I began to compare the vibrant colors of the natural world with the monochromatic tones of a hurricane. When another phrase came along, “the ocean sighs away the sunset”, it was time to go to work.

Finally, the “purple poem” was finished.  I enjoy combining words with images, so I superimposed its words on a lovely sea storm photo, and presented my muse with her very own poem. It’s been fun, and instructive. It did, after all, take five months for the poem to finally seem “right” – or right enough that I’m willing to share it publicly.

It’s not a generic “purple poem” any longer, although it is touched by amethyst breezes.  Today, it’s become “Storm Surges”.

Enjoy.

 

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