Re-Wilding the Balcony

DAISIES AND DANDELIONS

by me

Daisies and dandelions

Rush from the meadow

Trembling willow herb 

Hides in the hollow

In the next field is penned up

A herd of tame buttercup

Burst through your fence

Don’t you stop!

Spraying will follow.

Col has been rewilding the balcony - see his photo above. Its taken at an odd angle to get in the large wildflower - whose name I have forgotten - that is flourishing there.  We also had some Rosebay Willow Herb, but it has disappeared.

I wrote the above poem many years ago. I was on the train thinking how bare the fields were of wild flowers but how occasionally they tumbled down the unsprayed banks of the fields as if they were escaping from it.  And there was one field that was full of buttercups.  So I was warning them to escape while they could.

I used to write poems to catch the moments as they flew past my increasingly middle-aged self and it began to come home to me just how short our lives are.  Now, of course, I am hoping to live forever on this lovely planet. But I may have to get there the long way round, by the resurrection.

And while it is only the Kingdom of God that can "bring to ruin those ruining the earth", I think we have become more sensitive to the value of it all - many of the roadside verges are left to grow wild now, and the wild flowers are flourishing within them.

But there has been a shortage of butterflies this year - and we no longer get as many moths on our balcony overnight.  Those of us who have been around since the 1960s (and the rest!) will know that there was a time when, after a car journey, the windscreen would be horribly covered in smashed insects.

No longer. I would like to think it is because they have learned about the danger of cars - and never ever underestimate the intelligence in the creation, as the Creator, Jehovah, is the very Source of wisdom. But it does seem more likely that everything we are doing is causing insect populations to continue to reduce.

Which brings me back to the need for a perfect, loving government, the heavenly one.