Mrs RR said, “We
must get some wallflowers next week.”
And I sang,
Wallflowers, wallflowers growing up so high,
We are (pretty maidens?) and we are going to
die.
Except for XXX XXX, she’s the youngest here,
Turn for shame, turn for shame,
Turn your face to wall again
Wallflowers…
Directly out of
the vaults of memory but what made this different was the length of time since
it was last referenced: almost seventy years. And I can be sure of that because
of that second line. I was so young that almost any mention of death terrified
me; in this case future death is admitted by the singers in the song. They appear
prepared to consider their own deaths. For me at eight or nine death was an
image: lying in an open grave, able to see anonymous crowds walking by, no one
caring that I had died. No one caring.
There are some advantages to getting older.
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