Gathering Acorns, Hoarding Words

Gathering Acorns, Hoarding Words

“….there had been a culling of words concerning nature. Under pressure Oxford University Press revealed a list of the entries it no longer felt to be relevant to a modern-day childhood. The deletions included acorn, adder, ash, beech, bluebell, buttercup, catkin, conker, cowslip, cygnet, dandelion ,fern, hazel, heather, heron, ivy, kingfisher, lark, mistletoe, nectar, newt, otter, pasture and willow.”
     —from Robert McFarlane's "The Word Hoard" in Landmarks

I

 If children do not know willow,
how will they know the scent
of spearmint, or peppermint in cold spring streams,
or how water flow is shaped
by willow root? And if
they do not hear the word catkin,
how will they hear the bees as they forage for nectar in willow flowers,
in hazel shrubs, birch trees. If children
do not know acorn,
how will they play in fall
with the scaly cupule of nut on a finger for a hat
or plant oak trees
that will outlive them?

 And dandelion—when will they learn
the yellow of a Helianthus mirror of sun,
or May crowns, or magnificently silken
parachutes —
How might each successive generation
take life lessons to follow wind
and dreams; find open spaces in which to land and grow?

 II

Fern in wood;
heron, lark, kingfisher, in river, sky, sea;
otter in stream and ocean; cygnet in reeds,
and all that dwell beside and among us:
humankind over millennia has held the world together
with words, a continuous thread woven through hymns and sagas,
echoed across fjords and geyser fields, pastures and yards.
Let us, for all the children, chant your names,
call to your being —
We hold you remembered,
recognized,
real.

Vol. 47, no. 2, 2019

Catherine Young is author of the ekphrastic memoir Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal and the ecopoetry collection Geosmin (Midwest Book Awards Silver Medal Winner). Her prose and poetry are published in anthologies and literary journals internationally and nationally. She worked as a national park ranger, farmer, educator, and mother. She deeply believes in the use of story for transforming the world. Find her Landward podcasts and writings at: http://www.catherineyoungwriter.com/.