The gleam of the celandine
When the sun strikes the hedgerow bank,
Shining mid hosts of rainy days,
The sun-chrome flowers turn to face it,
Brightest rays of all arrays.
The earliest of all spring flowers
Now jostles the pale primrose
Softly limpid in pastel shades
While between the new grass grows.
Its Greater relative comes and goes
With the swallow, the chelidon,
But it is the Lesser that gladdens
My heart and shall not see mown.
Eight waxen yellow petals furl
Into themselves beneath grey clouds,
Yet rain, however hard it falls
Upright they stand unbowed and proud.
Nature renews herself each year
Turning to face it once again;
Perhaps this year will be diff’rent
But I fear it’s all in vain.
The strimmer, the mowing machine,
Heeds not the beauty in its path.
Incumbent upon man, it is,
Who cannot see his lack of craft.
© RM Meyer
Winswell Water, March 2020