Edelweiss (poem)

Do they look happy to meet you?

They are hard to seek out

- withdrawn in their lonely domain.

Lovestruck young men
with pluck 

clambered 

over the perilous heights 
in quest of the special 
flower.

And if one 
had the luck 
to find one

he would joyfully 
descend 

- the Edelweiss 
tucked in the band of his hat

And on bended knee 

present it 
to his desired  Fräulein

- the promise of undying love.

 I was walking along a riverside footpath in a green valley beneath some high mountains when I came to a place where the path had been closed due to a landslide. There I made my picnic. 

Scree from a rock fall originating more than 6,000 feet above my head littered the area and provided a new home for many shrubs, grasses and flowers including the rarely encountered edelweiss which must have been swept down from with the sand and stones. 

It is often said that what is at the bottom of the mountain will one day be at the top, and what is at the top will one day be at the bottom. We do well to remember this wisdom. 

Today the edelweiss is a protected flower. Suitors no longer risk life and limb for the ultimate love token. That's probably just as well.