A Buttercup
A little yellow buttercup
Stood laughing
at the sun;
The grass all green around it,
The summer just
begun;
Its saucy little head abrim
With happiness
and fun.
Near by – grown old, and gone to seed –
A dandelion
grew;
To right and left with every breeze
His snowy
tresses flew.
He shook his hoary head, and said:
“I’ve some
advice for you.
“Don’t think because you’re yellow now
That golden
days will last;
I was as gay as you are once,
But now my
youth is past.
This day will be my last to bloom;
The hours are
going fast.
“Perhaps your fun will last a week,
But then
you’ll have to die,”
The dandelion ceased to speak –
A breeze that
capered by
Snatched all the white hairs from his head
And wafted
them on high.
His yellow neighbour first looked sad,
Then, cheering
up, he said:
“If one’s to live in fear of death,
One might as
well be dead.”
The little buttercup laughed on,
And waved his
golden head.
(Anon., The Book of
1000 Poems, Ed by J. Murray Macbain, 1942, 1994, 1997, HarperCollins,
p.224)
Long before I had even considered going to university to
study English, my mother gave me a copy of The
Book of 1000 Poems as a birthday gift. I don’t know what inspired Mom to
get me this book; maybe she remembered my own awkward attempts at angst-filled
poetry in my teens; maybe she was just in a bookshop one day, casually leafing
through the pages of one book after another (and, if she’s like me,
surreptitiously holding each book close to her face to breathe in the heady
scents of paper and print), came across this book and thought I’d like it. I
don’t know, but I’m still extremely grateful to have this book in my possession.
Even though I have had this book on my shelves for at
least twenty years, I could not tell you about the poems in it, bar this one.
It is not because I am not interested in poetry, or that the other poems are
not worthy of attention; rather, I just love this poem so much that I cannot
open the anthology that contains it and read anything else.
I’m a pessimist. I would say that I am a born pessimist
but I suspect that would be a lie. Young children and pessimism are like oil
and water – the two just don’t mix. Pessimism is something that some of us
acquire as we go through life and
(choose to) listen to those pessimistic people who have come before us.
Pessimism is like guilt, I think. Both ‘qualities’ have to be instilled into
people from others and their sets of values - they do not come from within. And
both ‘qualities’ can be extremely inhibiting in life, marring life’s pleasures,
if they become the main ‘voices’ that we listen to.
It is no accident that the author of this poem has an
optimistic, happy young plant but a pessimistic old one. The old dandelion has
lived a long life and during that time he has become miserable, cynical and
bitter. What prompts him to offer his words of wisdom to the buttercup? Is it
with genuine concern that he warns the buttercup of life’s ultimate, and
apparently unhappy end, or is it jealousy and resentment of the buttercup’s
youth that motivates him?
After the dandelion has issued his warning he is no more,
but the effects of his pessimistic warning outlive him; the dandelion’s ominous
words sadden the young buttercup after the older flower’s death. Here, the poet
demonstrates the pervasive effects of those negative voices that are instilled
within us from others - those who believe their negative life experiences and
views should influence others. Luckily the buttercup decides to ignore the
advice off the dandelion and instead follow his own advice, ‘If one is to live
in fear of death, one might as well be dead’ and goes on enjoying life and the
summer sunshine.
For me, I love that the youthful buttercup demonstrates
far greater wisdom than the old dandelion. The buttercup is not stupid. He
knows that life is finite, over quickly. And it is for this very reason that he
determines to enjoy every single moment. He knows that a life worth living is
one that is lived in the moment appreciating now. The dandelion, realizing that
his own youth has passed, spends his final moments feeling bitter about its
passing rather than still enjoying the summer sunshine until the end. And he
wastes his precious final moments trying to instill that same bitterness,
resentment and pessimism in another, like the spreading of a disease.
I have spent a lot of my life living in fear. As a child
in primary school I was terrified of death. My mother was adopted by a lady of
sixty years old and this meant I spent a lot of my childhood attending more
than my fair share of funerals. At about the age of seven I developed a deep
dread of my mother’s death. It is not an exaggeration to say that this dread
dominated my childhood. I am now nearly 45 years old and my mother is still
alive and well at 70. My dread served no positive purpose, but it hindered my
youth greatly. I did not like staying with aunts and uncles (there were a few
who outlived my childhood) for fear of something happening to my mother in my
absence; I gave up the chance to attend a residential college to train as a
veterinary nurse as a teenager, for fear of leaving my mother. My youth was not
spent enjoying the sunshine, the here and now, and the result of my lack of
youthful blind optimism was the stunting of my emotional maturity into adult
life. Adult life especially is very scary for a person who has become so
pre-occupied with death.
As I have gotten older, I have tried to follow the
buttercup’s advice and live in the moment and not fear death; I do not fear my
own death but I do fear losing those around me whom I love. I know I am not
alone in feeling this way. I also, maybe because I am in my middle years, fear
growing old. I fear losing my health, my looks, my waistline. I fear losing forever,
the opportunities and chances in my life that I was too scared to grasp when I
was younger.
But, in the last four years, in spite of that fear, I
have left a destructive marriage; I have fulfilled a long held dream and gone
to university and got a degree; I have qualified as a college teacher; I have
watched my two beautiful sons grow; I have met and fallen in love with a man
who treats me as though I am the best thing that has ever happened to him; I
live in a safe and happy home with a garden I am enjoying developing immensely.
Life, in this moment, is wonderful. For a pessimist I haven’t done too badly.
