To be read or sung aloud:
Dazzle me, little sun-of-the-grass!
And spin me, tiny time-machine!
(Tick-tock, sun clock, thistle & dock)
Now no longer known as
Dent-de-Lion, Lion's Tooth or Windblow,
(Tick-tock, sun clock, nettle & dock)
Evening Glow, Milkwitch or Parachute, so
Let new names take and root, thrive and grow,
(Tick-tock, sun clock, rattle & dock)
I would make you some, such as Bane of Lawn Perfectionists
Or Fallen Star of the Football Pitch
or Scatterseed, but
Never would I call you only, merely, simply, 'weed.'
(Tick-tock, sun clock, clover & dock)
In The Lost Words, richly illustrated by Jackie Morris, author Robert McFarlane pays poetic tribute to words like dandelion, above, "to conjure back the near-lost magic and strangeness of the nature that surrounds us."
From the Lost Words website:
The book began as a response to the removal of everyday nature words - among them "acorn," "bluebell," "kingfisher" and "wren" - from a widely used children’s dictionary, because those words were not being used enough by children to merit inclusion. But The Lost Words then grew to become a much broader protest at the loss of the natural world around us, as well as a celebration of the creatures and plants with which we share our lives, in all their wonderful, characterful glory.
McFarlane explains: "We’ve got more than 50% of species in decline. And names, good names, well used, can help us see and they help us care. We find it hard to love what we cannot give a name to. And what we do not love we will not save."
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