The Lesser Celandine

 The Lesser Celandine

On the edges of the bridleway, between Priestley Green and Norwood Green today, there were lesser celandines in profusion. Among the glossy, heart-shaped leaves, their bright yellow, little, star-shaped faces turned greedily to the sun. It was indeed a beautiful sunny, Spring day and the celandines were making the most of it. 

It was one of the favourite flowers of poet William Wordsworth; he wrote three poems about them, and asked for them to be carved on his tombstone. He called them "Prophets of delight and mirth" and knew they can be predictors of the weather, clamming up before raindrops start to fall, staying closed when the elements are at their worst. This a little like us, hiding away from the harsh realities of the world. Like the flower, we've been focusing on self-preservation during this past year of Covid pandemic and self-isolation. 

"There is a Flower, the lesser Celandine,
That shrinks, like many more, from cold an rain;
And the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, 't is out again!
When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm,
Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,
In close self-shelter, like a thing at rest."

One day Wordsworth found, however, a celandine in its later stages, proudly and bravely facing the elements - not out of choice, or courage, but out of necessity. 

"The sunshine man not cheer it, nor the dew;
It cannot help itself in its decay;
Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue.
And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey."

Does age bring with it a kind of acceptance, a confidence, an assurance? Maybe Wordsworth, then an older man, recognised something of himself in that little flower.

Writing prompt:

• Have you been like the little celandine this past year, hiding away and only appearing when nothing threatens, or have you braved the elements and made the best of it?
• Are you experiencing the onset of old age, and if so, how do you feel about it?