A Flower Fairy Alphabet
Still searching for scarlet pimpernel and toadflax,
endangered cowslips – no luck. Even on
chalkland, beside the Edward Thomas stone,
the flowers are poor and few. I learned up to
a hundred names from the famous Flower Fairies –
those little books I treasured as a child.
The artist – one of those women who didn’t marry
because of World War One. The fairies – children
decked out in dragonfly wings and coloured costumes,
just as they breathed one hundred years ago.
A boy perched on the huge trunk of an elm tree,
a plant called eyebright ‘on the hillside bare’.
Far back, I just remember fields of foxgloves;
I think they’re not there now. And quietly, utter
the lost names – thrift, bee orchid, shepherd’s purse ….