Apparently, I'm not supposed to love this stuff. I wish I didn't know that.
Yesterday, I took a river walk amidst a gorgeous day, mid-seventies, some wind but not much, the open azure sky like a huge crown all around. I took a walk that fits me just about perfectly: a mile to the river, a mile (by another route) back. Maybe a half-dozen fishermen were out at the South Pond, but not much luck going on among 'em.
I'd taken an old camera I hadn't used for ages, just to give it a workout. I didn't take my phone. . .and should have because when I got down to the river banks, glorious mobs of magenta were exploding on both sides. I had no idea they'd be there.
Look at those purple troops over there on the other side.
They're called Dame's Rocket, and, if the on-line sources can be believed, they're horribly invasive, their rogue beauty as ample as dandelions and just as dang meddlesome. I wish I didn't know that.
They seemed to have disappeared from ditches last year, or at least I didn't notice them as notably as I had before. Seems as if it's been a while. But this year, like the cicadas, they've come back with a vengeance that's bountiful.
They somehow escaped people's gardens, I'm told, where they've held down a beloved place for hundreds of years. These days, they're very happily on their own, and down by the river, at least, they're legion.
They've been beloved in the evening especially, when their fragrance is released, just another facet of their beauty (some think they're an aphrodesiacs--no, I didn't take any home). Anyway, the word is, they've departed a thousand garden plots to populate places where wildlife carry their seeds along to unceded territories (or so the story goes). And they're hearty: those lugged-along seeds have no trouble finding a place to open. This year--viola!--they're back and, doggone it, they're wonderful. They give the riverbank some shocking technicolor.
When I walked away, I could have kicked myself for not toting a better camera or at least my phone, because none of these shots do the huge stands of Dame's Rocket justice. They're luscious. Purple suggests the robes of kings and queens; yesterday the riverbank was robed in royalty.
I'm supposed to believe, supposed to testify, supposed to confess that all that blessed periwinkle is a plague, a creeping abomination.
That's what I'm supposed to say. So I did, right? But it's oh, so painful, even for a Calvinist.
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