by E. Fraser
How can anything so gentle
Hold such power?
It’s in your nature, Mallow,
beautiful wildflower.
Pavement cracks or palace gardens,
Do you realise you’re a healer?
Maybe,
but – with untold years traversing
Earth –
you’ve grown humility.
So you don’t shout about your
brilliance,
you’re just there, with all you need.
In cheerful silence you keep going.
You don’t mind the label, ‘weed’.
(Some humans have the cheek
to use the phrase, ‘invasive species’!)
Anyhow, you nourish wildly,
feed the ones who find you, free.
Abundant – flower, seed and leaf –
you nurse the butterflies and bees,
snuggled in your petal bedclothes
while you rock them with the wind,
sometimes heavy with existence, but
your tough stems won’t give in.
Humble Mallow, you’ve sustained us,
cleansed, healed, soothed
– more than we know –
and now you’re dancing in MY garden.
What a thrill, to watch you grow
and learn the nature of your nature.
Gentle, powerful and wild.
To some, you’re just a pretty flower.
To Mother Earth; a precious child.
Malva Sylvestris in Latin
Mauve in French, Hocas in Gaelic
Malakhē in Ancient Greek
Molokhia in Arabic
We have shared roots, Common
Mallow,
Stretch your fingers, lift your head
from car park corners, random
hedgerows, and the gap behind the
shed.
Called “the softness of the forest”,
plant friend, ancestors have
treasured,
it’s time again to seed your wisdom
and
it’s time we all remembered.