Was there ever a joy greater than the bonny buttercup meadow in the mature spring-light? Amid green grass ribbons tall and gay, they invite the honeybees to hum the rolling rhythms of their daily fiesta-siesta.
If you had only ever seen mud and rain, even though you sat in brilliant and sunny rays, how could you dream of a buttercup? How could anyone imagine such a beautiful flower that grows in abundant generosity over the earth? They are as if raindrops became joy, as if they are the gold at the end of a rainbow.
From the mud come flowers as golden as sunshine, as fluid as rain. They come at first in ones and twos, yet soon they are the most buoyant of crowds, happily dancing in the wind.
By late May the lawn is polka-dot with those little buttery blooms. One day it's only green, then there they are by the tens of dozens, each one as bonny as the sun above. Lucinda wanders among them, a soft smile growing into a grin.
The hill that was a sombre wintry green has become aflame with buttercups. It is the most golden anything can ever be, our Earth as mother and artist. To Ronan the blooms are the laughter of nature, an exuberance that nurtures.