Ruddy muzzles

Observing small things close at hand provides distraction from the malign whirlpool of global events.

Here, a small patch of tiny wild cyclamen catches my attention in the garden each year at this season and is forgotten the rest. I intend to plant more but never do. Their delicate tenacity delights me. 

Nobody has described  these little flowers as perceptively as DH Lawrence in his sublime poem Sicilian cyclamens

Cyclamens, young cyclamens
Arching
Waking, pricking their ears
Like delicate very-young greyhound bitches
Half-yawning at the open, inexperienced
Vistas of day,
Folding back their soundless petalled ears.

and

Cyclamens, ruddy-muzzled cyclamens
In little bunches like bunches of wild hares
Muzzles together, ears-aprick
 Whispering witchcraft
Like women at a well, the dawn-fountain.
 

Think what you like about DHL but his observation of the natural world was extraordinarily acute and his words capture the essence of plants and animals in a way that leaves most other wildlife poets standing.

"There are no prettily dancing daffodils in DH Lawrence's flower poetry. He is the poet who stripped sentimentality and consolation from the "birds, beasts and flowers" and restored their sexual drama." (Carol Rumens)