Weeds and wildflowers

how my love of them inspired a tattoo and a poem

Photo by Emmeline T. on Unsplash

Yesterday I went for another tattoo (well 3 actually), and picked two wildflower designs that my tattooist Lou had picked and pressed herself. I opted to have one of them on my leg and despite the pain, I loved the end result.

I wrote a little poem while I lay there being inked, which originally was going to be my poem of the week:

The beauty of black ink

Pain is temporary
I repeat to myself
As the needle pierces my skin
Black ink seeping in to my body through the finely drawn lines
The tattooist carefully turning my leg into a canvas
As I twitch and clench my teeth
Leaning in to the sharpness
Anticipating the end
With every line
Knowing it'll be worth it
I wonder for a second why I put myself through this,
Why do I choose to mark my skin in this way?
A permanent decision looked at with derision by my mother
My skin tingles with pain, but it's good pain
Chatter fills the room, brews, and great music accompany us as I struggle to lie still and try not to wriggle
Listening in to the conversation around me, smiling, laughing
Twisting my body into shapes it's not used to
Finding it all strangely relaxing
Pain is temporary
Beauty is worth it!

Here’s how the tattoo worked out

Tattoo of weeds on my right calf

Anyway, this morning as I was reading through substack, I noted that over on

Poetry Pals

we are sharing Cathartic poems, those poems that you need to hear, either by yourself or by someone else. I wrote this in response to that prompt and on reflecting on my tattoo inspiration.

I just love how much I relate to the wildflowers…

Weeds and wildflowers

You do not need to do the things that other people do
to make yourself feel better, to fit in
you are like a wildflower, growing on the side of the pathway
for you do things differently, you live life your way

Why do you worry that all you did was mundane, boring, nothing much,
those ordinary things are for the flowers that get themselves twisted and arranged,
pulled from their familiar surroundings to perform for others
you, you wildflower you, live your best life

Right where you are, stand tall
fight that feeling within you that you are not good
your beauty shines from within you, even in the darkest places
you shine, you grow, you delight, you are good

You do not have to compete like the others to make people notice you
just being you brings people joy as they go about their days
you are allowed to be wild, to pop up in unexpected places
be out of the ordinary, be different

You are all that matters
practice saying no, shout it if you have to
feel the joy in your body when you turn down the things that everyone else does
advocating for yourself instead, happy to remain where you are

Refuse to conform
your brain will make you believe you don’t fit in
that you have broken all the rules, that you are worthless
you do not need to do the things that other people do to make yourself feel better

You edge dweller, margin seeker, wild flower, you
you have never fitted into those plastic wrapped parcels
you stood out, lived differently and you have always been yourself
why change now?

Be yourself, let your desire to be like everyone else rest if it wants
tell yourself a different story
live your best life, be wild, be outrageous
be you, just as you are

and just see how much people find you beautiful!

The weeds that inspired the tattoo

I was really surprised afterwards however, when I shared my tattoo photo and poem with a friend and she asked if I had heard of the poem ‘Weeds’, by Norman Nicholson. I hadn’t, so I looked it up and I loved how much I related to it, especially when I read some similarities in the themes of our poems, so I am sharing that with you too.

WEEDS

Some people are flower lovers.
I'm a weed lover.

Weeds don't need planting in well-drained soil;
They don't ask for fertilizer or bits of rag to scare away birds.
They come without invitation;
And they don't take the hint when you want them to go.
Weeds are nobody's guests;
More like squatters.

Coltsfoot laying claim to every new-dug clump of clay;
Pearlwort scraping up a living from a ha'porth of mortar;
Dandelions you daren't pick or you know what will happen;
Sour docks that make a first-rate poultice for nettle-stings;
And flat-foot plantain in the back street,
gathering more dust than the dustmen.

Even the names are a folk-song:
Fat hen, rat's tail, cat's ear, old men's baccy and Stinking Billy
Ring a prettier chime for me than honeysuckle or jasmine,
And Sweet Cicely smells cleaner than Sweet William
though she's barred from the garden.

And they have their uses, weeds.
Think of the old, worked-out mines -
Quarries and tunnels, earth scorched and scruffy,
torn up railways, splintered sleepers,
And a whole Sahara of grit and smother and cinders.

But go in summer and where is all the clutter?
For a new town has risen of a thousand towers,
Sparkling like granite, swaying like larches,
And every spiky belfry humming with a peal of bees.
Rosebay willowherb:
Only a weed!

Flowers are for wrapping in cellophane to present as a bouquet;
Flowers are for prize-arrangements in vases and silver tea-pots;
Flowers are for plaiting into funeral wreaths.
You can keep your flowers.
Give me weeds!

Norman Nicholson (1914 - 1987)

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I do love weeds and wildflowers

I now have a permanent reminder of them to carry with me

What do you think?

Lisa x