Tanacetum vulgare

By Ewan

Thu, 19 Sep 2019
  • 552 reads
2 comments
 

golden buttons on a cloth of green

we pick them in the field

outside the abbey

in bunches

into burlap

 

brother john has been to st gallen

shrine to the irishman gallus

in the land of franks

cow bitter

is physic

 

i am bent with the rheumatics

i kneel on two hassocks

from prime to compline

in praise of

the almighty

 

before i sleep john’s potion brings succour

he experiments nightly

on brothers and laymen

what poison

is this tansy

 

Certificate U
Poem
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by Di_Hard on

I'm always on the look out for stuff that helps with arthritis, do you have it? Have you tried tansy? It is interesting the Native American Indians used it for back pain, and also medieval herbalists here, yet now science says there is nothing to it. Your poem bings out what to me is the bleakness of monastery life but maybe the purity of it, the simple way to be good. But the shared desperation for relief from pain is the same everywhere, even if the relief is poisonous. I like how spare this is, like the monastic life, the only colour that of the flowers. Also reminding how interconnected monasteries were, encouraging science

 

Submitted by Ewan on

well yes, I have a tiny bit of arthritis in my great toe. Use turmeric in food quite a lot and it stops it flaring up. I like the idea of medicine made from wild flowers and the monks' primitive experiments.

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