Buttercups dot the landscape each spring and summer. Their presence is an act of defiance in a world of manicured and mown lawns.
The buttercup breaks the rules. It dares to bloom beyond boundaries that we create to define our controlled lives.
They are the children of the wild and we are just visitors in their world.
Today’s post celebrates the buttercup in all its glory.
A Poem:
Buttercups
Long-necked and sprite headed wild and loose among the edges of childhood reflective and golden under chins and atop wrists a pentameter of petals spiral bound and levitating on the currents of the sky bracelets and necklaces from interlocked stems the luminaria of the meadow gilded crowns of the field
~Rae Carpenter
This poem was inspired by all those summer days outside with family and friends, buttercups scattered in the grass, and the moments that we held them under our chins or on top of our wrists. If the buttercup left a golden glow on our skin we would then declare that we liked butter.
We would then take those buttercups and tie the stems together to create buttercup crowns and bracelets which we wore like we were the royalty of childhood.
Artwork:
Buttercups and Daisies by Hugh Cameron (1881) shows the beautiful innocence of a child holding buttercups in one hand and daisies in the other. Imagine a mother receiving these gifts plucked from a field of flowers.
Buttercups by George Elgar Hicks shows another delightful child gazing over a bouquet of buttercups in her clasped hands.
Wild Flowers by William Charles Thomas Dobson depicts the beauty of buttercups through the sweet relationship between two girls who are fashioning buttercup and daisy bracelets and crowns to wear upon their wrists and heads.
May the beauty of the buttercup inspire you to break your daily routine and seek joy outside your normal boundaries.
Seek the beauty in the small things in life. Even when the world is in chaos, small things in our world can be sources of joy.
May you discover beauty in the small things.
Beauty is Medicine for the Soul.
When I was a little girl, we used to hold DANDELIONS under our chin to look for a glow to see if we liked butter. They were our buttercups. Thank you for this great memory.
Beautiful.