SHADES OF BEAUTY

I am not sure when my love affair with zinnias actually began. It was not even sparked by seeing a field of blooming flowers, rather it caught me quite by surprise. I recall several years ago, perhaps 14, deciding my large garden needed some flowers as well as vegetables. I quite unknowingly purchased a packet of zinnia flowers along with some others that never made the grade with me. I had no idea what they would actually look like in massive bloom, but I image I must have been attracted to the pictures in the catalog.

It was that late summer, when the first bloom came in full, that I was hooked, almost like love at first sight. It was astounding to me, the range of beauty that came from a single packet of seeds. There were hundreds of flowers and not one looked quite like another. The colors were vivid beyond any I'd ever seen, and the shapes and sizes of each flower so different from the one just next 'door'.

A field of zinnias in bloom in my garden.


When I go to the garden to cut a bouquet, I always end up with far more flowers then I intended to harvest. It happens every time: I cut a flower and the one a few inches away catches my eye and my breath and I can't resist cutting it as well...and on and on that way. My heart gets full to overflowing when I stand amid the zinnias, it is kind of like the full-throttle kick I get in autumn when the colors are peaking.

I began collecting the seeds that very year...initially a modest bagful. My love for these flowers has transcended all these years, and is so strong that I suggested to my daughter and husband when their second child was about to be born they name her Zinnia...Nia for short. As Iris was the name of their first child, they did not think another flower name quite appropriate...or maybe they just thought the whole idea rather foolish. (Anyway, Elsa fits this little girl perfectly, though Nia probably would have, too.)

So now the colors are gone, and the papery petals are falling. I stand amid the field of dried zinnias with no less love.

...and find them stunningly beautiful, as well.

...a single zinnia in full summer bloom...

...a fall 'bloom'

...again...

...and again...

...and again...

...and again...


As I stand amid this field of spent flowers, I am struck by the beauty. It is different and less in your face, but none the less stunning. As I am gathering the seeds from one 'flower' I am caught by the beauty of the one only inches away, and must collect that as well, and on and on until the gallon bags at this point, and I am not done, number 6 or 8.

...the seeds are eager to split from the 'pod' into my hand...

...it is so hard to leave a seed-head in the garden....

And here they will sit, in this basket (I know I'll have to find an additional container this year) on a shelf until spring's planting.

ZINNIAS

...hard frost has claimed
their vivid colors...
now pale and tan
petals dropping
I think this plastic bag I hold
unworthy of the seeds
I gather.

When summer was in its prime
I marveled at the bold,
electric colors
commanding my eyes...
color bursting like radiance,
no size or shape
the same.

Each year I come
stand amid their dry remains
to gather up the seeds...
bag
after bag
after bag

the seed's potential
palpable,
nearly holy in my hand

and I think how they will lay
inert all winter long
in a lowly plastic bag
in a broken wicker basket
on a basement shelf.

I know their austere
presence
and how they will stun me
again and yet again
come summer.