Tara E. Sturgill

Violet Expert

He liked a hard drink after identifying delicate blooms and wielding a craggy walking stick in the  meadow, on the ridgetop, near the stream. Perhaps the perfection of a pistil and stamen, the mocking  beauty and vigilant presence of that flower made the spirits drown him.

Years walking the trail, combing the forests, tamping down the briars with his firm step. Revived from  the sweet juice of a fresh-picked blackberry. His neck glass yielding the magnified blossom. 

He wrote a book on violets; the culmination of his study.

For a time, that book was considered preeminent, while he ventured further into a fen teeming with oblivion and self-loathing.

Replenishing the emptiness with a tincture not made from his muse.

He reached out, grasped at those who knew him best. Those that gruff words had spurned. Sitting on a rock, watching the summer breeze muss the prairie grass.

Recalled now through stories told by botanists. Tramping the bogs, the oak openings, and the maple flats. 

He left a book about violets.

Detailed and drawn, the treatment and identification

now considered incorrect.  

Tara E. Sturgill (she/her) is a scientist and poet residing in Kentucky.  She’s a mental health advocate, LGBTQIA+ ally, volunteer, friend to houseplants, and an introvert.  To date, Tara’s work has been published in Pangyrus, Arts of Thought, Constellate Magazine, and is forthcoming in others. Connect/plugin at tespoet.com