Allium ursinum, ramson, sometimes ransom,
Old English hramsa: all Northern Europe
has a name for wild garlic, that startling white,
its pungency. Pick and they quickly fade
but in the mass – and what mass! – overwhelming.
In Cornwall they form thick banks along the lanes
and fill damp woods, making me long to be
propped on beds of amaranth and moly –
 
and truly I find they’re magic: the moly-garlic
Hermes gave Odysseus to protect him.
Now hostage to fortune, how willingly
I’d pay a king’s ransom – in ramsons, of course,
whole armfuls of them, a wild cornucopia –
for the smallest chance of release, remission.
 
 Mary MacRae
Inside the Brightness of Red, 2010, Second Light Publications

In memory of my late colleague, mentor and friend. Mary and her wonderful poem are especially in my thoughts at this time of year as I marvel at the prolific return of the wild garlic in the hedges and woods of my home, Cornwall.