Last week, I shared with you a poem about daily walks through   Fen Meadow  .
Here is another.  As it is the time for buttercups, buttercups creep into this one, too!

I often find walking the best time for praying, and thinking.  There is something about the rhythm of your body, of your feet in contact with the earth, that quiets the mind and makes prayer easier – at least for me.  As I was walking and turning over my worries/prayers before God, I felt that I was being reminded to pay attention instead to where I was.  In particular, the phrase “consider the lilies of the field” came into my mind.  Now, the lilies of this particular meadows are these beautiful buttercups that grow tall among the grasses, splashed with orchids and clover and birdsfoot trefoil. So, I spent a while considering them, and it was impossible not to feel my heart lift at the sight of so much beauty.

The next day, I approached my walk more enthusiastically – looking forward to seeing the buttercups again.  The sun was shining, they would be perfect.  When I arrived, a large sit-on mower was being driven up and down over the long grass, noisily spraying all that was left of the wild flowers behind it. It felt as if I had just begun to notice something good, when it was mown down.  The poem tells what happened next – if “happened” is the right word!

CONSIDER

I walked behind as he
mowed buttercups down –
scattering gold through
the cut grass –
I gleaned the shattered stems
to carry home.

But, as they wilted in a jar,
they darkened, and drew
to themselves the thought
of other things cut short –
of life, and joy, and hope,
of beauty crushed,
of anger that narrows to
silence –

And yet, today, I came back,
saw the ground  newly
hallowed by many
small shining flowers –
open, nodding to the blowing wind,
running over with saffron light.

Cut down, we flower again, again.
How it all murmurs constantly,
as the shuttle flies across
the loom, and bare feet
are dusted with gold.
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,  yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.   
Matthew 6:27-29