She gives me many things including the name of our creeping
wood sorrel (oxalis corniculata). We have the regular
sort too – but it’s this one I really love.
And now I know its name I love it even more. Knowing the name and a bit about the nature
of something allows you to know it more - you’d hardly call someone a friend if
you didn’t call them by their name? Now
I know them I feel I can visit our creeping wood sorrel and see how it is
doing, how it feels each day.
Congregating
along the edges and breaks in our paths it acts like a reddish green
cushion. It softens our environment – it
hides our cracks by filling them. It
wants to help us forget where we are broken, to soothe our jagged places. And to punctuate its curves with tiny perfect
flowers. Like air holes punched in a
cardboard box – a way to let us breathe in our confinement. To offer us bright ideas on dull days. I notice that these flowers close up when
there’s no sun. Tight pinpricks of
yellow across the path – just enough colour for us to believe their promise to
return.
A little reading tells me it’s an Old
World plant now mostly considered a weed. It can be eaten and bears the flavour of
lemons but can be problematic in large doses.
Low-growing, it appears delicate but is known to be explosive when trying
to further its cause. All this
reinforces why we get along - and that it’s sometimes known as Sleeping Beauty
is even better.