My heart fills with joy of dancing daffodils

The other day I noticed a beautiful red and yellow flower with long crinkled petals at my friend’s place.

The other day I noticed a beautiful red and yellow flower with long crinkled petals at my friend’s place. I asked for a cutting, to which she laughed and said it was a wild plant growing on the hedge that she intended to cut and throw in the fire. I reminded her that roses, orchids and other garden varieties are not the only flowers worth having.

Why are wild flowers treated thus? Are they created by a lesser god? After all did John Keats not say that a thing of beauty is a joy forever? Anything beautiful in nature should give us joy.
When Easter lilies appear in the backyard, I gather them with enthusiasm and keep them in vases. The vast stretches of the beautiful orange blooms bring to mind the yellow perennials that are said to have inspired Wordsworth to write The Daffodils. I have even thought of suggesting that Easter lilies be arranged on the church altar on Easter Sundays but did not give voice to it, lest the flowers, being too commonplace and in the wild, be deemed not worthy of the holy purpose, though the Bible says, “Consider the lilies of the field…not even Solomon in all his splendour was arrayed as one of these”.

The Cassia fistula, commonly known Golden Shower or Kani Konna, is a flower after my heart. The luxuriant, auspicious yellow blossoms covering the whole tree with a minimum of leaves is a bewitching sight to behold, though I have to be content admiring them in places other than my own as even after several attempts at growing, success seems to elude me. But the efforts will continue.

Coffee flowers in their season cover the trees with beautiful white flowers a little bigger than jasmines, with a smell twice as sweet. Their heady scent wafting through the windows could put any artificial room freshener to shame. The rose apple tree in front of the house has been retained for the bright pink feathery flowers that spread a carpet below resembling a sheet of whipped strawberry ice-cream, a phenomenon just before the fruits break forth. The fuchsia flowers, looking shyly from behind the well, are there for their beauty. Even the rare solitary ones like the red bulbous flowers with overlapping petals formed into a tight fist, seen in less treaded areas, also hold my interest.Look around, folks, and discover that there is great, delirious joy in nature. And it costs little money.

Elizabeth Koshy
Email: kitty.koshy@gmail.com

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