This sonnet explores unrealised love – love that is felt emotionally but never physically. The metaphor I’ve created to represent this form of love is a “wildflower walk”: this is a journey, on foot, to collect wild flowers for a posy.
The speaker recounts the story of such a walk, adding that they avoided plucking some “blooms” because they were “too keen to be cut off from roots” or “too proud”. I add colour with specific British wild flowers, each one representing a human attitude or disposition.
In the capping couplet, the speaker explains that, as they “admire” the bunch of flowers they have collected, their “mind drifts” to those unplucked blooms.
Wildflower Walk My wildflower walk encompassed fields festooned With cups and poppies of a lucid dream, I followed brooks, encountered briers that wound… My quest to clasp a bunch of blooms supreme. But buds I saw too vibrant for my home: Some glared too keen to be cut off from roots Some stood too proud to pull from musty loam; Too precious for an oaf with tarnished boots. Lone daffodil rising above the crowd, Pink foxglove whose joy shames the hedgerow green, Sure pimpernel as red as horns are loud, Sharp cornflower crown fit for a faery queen, As I admire cut blossoms in my vase, My mind drifts to those bright, abandoned stars.