


This upstart thistle
Is young and touchy; it is
All barb and bristle,
Threatening to wield
Its green, jagged armament
Against the whole field.
Butterflies will dare
Nonetheless to lay their eggs
In that angle where
The leaf meets the stem,
So that ants or browsing cows
Cannot trouble them.
Summer will grow old
As will the thistle, letting
A clenched bloom unfold
To which the small hum
Of bee wings and the flash of
Goldfinch wings will come,
Till its purple crown
Blanches, and the breezes strew
The whole field with down.
~Richard Wilbur “A Pasture Poem” from Anterooms






Not unlike the thistles that dot our pastures, I can have a tendency to be a bristly, barbed and sharp – some is simply my nature, but also long years of relentless training to become tough and impenetrable. Perhaps it represents my need for self-protection, but like the thistle, though having spiky thorns may keep me from being “eaten”, it doesn’t deter the gentle approach of butterfly or bee.
As a result, I have been softened over time (in more ways than one!) by forces outside of myself – a ripening that means I am less threat and more welcoming. My unfolding into fluffy blossom became my way of enveloping myself around my world as grace enveloped me.
With the breezes, the softest of thistle down spreads afar rather than standing stock-still in self-defense. I find in my seventh decade, I’m actually meant to fly, settling into nooks and crannies I never could have dreamed while barbed and spiky.
That is how grace and redemption works on thistles and bristly people: from sharp edges to delicate downiness.
We are all in need of such transformation.




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