Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower—but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

This poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson is what my 6 year old is working on for recitation this term in her tutorial. I had her read me the title and was about to proceed when I thought to ask, “Do you know what the word cranny means?” She didn’t “dictionary define” it but instead said something I didn’t expect, “Mom, is it like the snapdragons we found growing out of the wall in the front yard?”

YES.

I smiled and said, “That is the perfect picture for this poem!”

She read it through twice and asked what it meant, so we talked for another minute about the poem. However, the joy for both of us was not “the point of the poem is…” (like so many of us were taught to treat poetry) but the shared connection to it from our own front yard. As she gets older and revisits the poem for insight, that picture will be etched on her heart.

Being in nature, noticing the most seemingly insignificant things can lead to much inquiry. I asked my husband (who knows all the plant things) how that large cluster of plants could grow out of a crack. He said a seed must have somehow gotten in there and with all the rain we have had, decided to live.

Truly an everyday miracle from God.