Wild garlic

Day 17: 'write a poem that contains the name of a specific variety of edible plant – preferably one that grows in your area.  In the poem, try to make a specific comparison between some aspect of the plant’s lifespan and your own – or the life of someone close to you. Also, include at least one repeating phrase.'

A local wild edible plant that delights us every spring, is the ramsom or wild garlic.  It grows throughout our woods and strays outside the margins,  coating the fields in a sprinkling of white. It's Latin name is Alium ursinum, thought to refer to their attractiveness to bears coming out of winter hibernation - although there are no bears here in the Cotswolds!  All parts of the plant are edible: flowers can be used to garnish salads, leaves can be used raw in salads, or chopped and used instead of garlic as can the bulb.  

Wild garlic

Each year, about this time,  

A drift of white seeps from the woods

Drawing me down the lane

Nose finding them before my eyes.

On each side of the path 

Delicate white six-pointed flowers

Cluster into a trembling ball

Poised high on a single stem

Above shining bright green leaves. 

Each year, about this time

I throw off my winter habits

Of warmth and dark, of making plans, 

Of dreaming of times past and future.

Now in the time of the ramsom, 

It is time to emerge into lengthening days

Time to turn my face to the sun

To stand shivering in the breeze

And greet the world anew.

© Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved.