The Vole

Here he comes!
Quiet now, lest we frighten him away.
How tiny he is,
With little snub nose, and coat of velvet brown.
Stay quite still!
He's come to eat the Niger seed...

And now he's gone.

A Heavenly Wardrobe...

When I get to heaven, I'll wear a dress of cherry blossom,
with wreaths of birdsong in my hair,
and shoes of gossamer thread.

I'll have a rainbow for a shawl,
the blue summer sky for a cloak,
a negligee of shimmering rain,
and a jumper of bonfire smoke.

When I get to heaven, I'll wear a gown of blazing sun,
and a necklace and diadem of dazzling stars,
and dressing will be so much fun!

It's harvest time!*

Red tractors, blue trailers,
The reassuring grumble of the
yellow combine harvesters;
Rain delays, fields half-done,
Drying wind, evening sun;
Golden straw, stomping on stubble,
Straw bale-making, harvest's done!

*Possibly my second most favourite time of the year, after Christmas...

"Dove-grey cloak"

She came across the sea in a boat,
        (a wooden boat, a rowing boat);
She came across the sea in a dove-grey cloak,
         and she stood upon the sand in the rain.

She stepped across the grass,
        (the wet grass, sodden grass),
Out from under the trees in a dove-grey cloak,
         and I knew she was coming to me.

Up the path she came,
        (that steep path, muddy path);
She trudged up the path in her dove-grey cloak,
         and knocked at the knocker on the door.

They let her in, they took her cloak,
        (that wet cloak, drenched cloak);
They gave her brandy by the open fire,
         and then they sent for me.

They sent for me and I came,
        (down the staircase, old oak staircase),
Across the floor to the open fire,
         where she sat, waiting, for me.

         And what were the feelings that tumbled through my breast?
         (oh! proud breast, unforgiving breast!)
         Would I turn her again from my door?

I knelt at her feet, and kissed her hand,
        (and the tears coursed down my cheeks);
For she had gone because I sent her,
         but she returned to the need in me.

"Happiness"

I am the winter sun coming up over the horizon;
I am a robin singing in a hawthorn tree;
I am a bunch of bright yellow daffodils;
I am a fountain pen with turquoise ink;
I am droplets hanging on a hedgerow;
I am bryony berries, strung along a fence like red fairy beads;
I am sweet sleep;

I am laughter;
I am a joke shared with a friend;
I am the softest fur on my dog;
I am fresh bed linen;
I am the solving of a cryptic crossword puzzle;
I am summer's heat;

I am the delicate lime green of the first leaves of spring;
I am bright orange and deep purple;
I am the smell of woodsmoke hanging in the crisp autumn air;
I am the smell of damp earth;
I am a vole running across the garden;
I am a blackbird singing at dusk;

I am chocolate slab;
I am home-made ice-cream;
I am pasta and pesto with peccorino cheese;
I am self-knowledge;

I am that high lonesome Bluegrass sound;
I am the deep throbbing of a helicopter as it flies low overhead;
I am rain drumming on the roof at night;
I am a red kite mewling to its mate;

I am a parcel from the postman;
I am an e-mail in my inbox;
I am Morecambe and Wise;
I am Calvin and Hobbes;
I am Pride and Prejudice re-read for the hundredth time;
I am a hug from a child;

I am puffy white clouds;
I am sunlight;
I am creamy-white plum blossom against a blue sky;
I am paddling in an icy cold stream;
I am strength in my limbs;
I am Psalm 19;

I am happy.

It's autumn, autumn, autumn...

"Bright yellow, red and orange, the leaves come down in hosts;

The trees are Indian princes, but soon they'll turn to ghosts;

The scanty pears and apples hang russet on the bough;

It's autumn, autumn, autumn late,

'Twill soon be winter now."

                            

- from William Allingham's "Robin Redbreast"

The hedges red with haws...

                            'September'

I bear the scales, where hang in equipoise

  The night and day; and when unto my lips

I put my trumpet, with its stress and noise

  Fly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships;

The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips;

  Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight;

The hedges are all red with haws and hips,

  The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night.

                 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Time to stand and stare

These weeks of rain, followed by a weekend of warmth and sunshine, have done their work. Over night it seems, our garden has changed. It is no longer bare and brown with just a few smudges of spring colour here and there; now the spidery branches are once more thickly covered with leaves, the creeping clematis is beginning to poke shyly through the hedge, and the lawn is dappled with fallen apple blossom.

In the mornings I make buckwheat porridge for breakfast, and now and then I will pause in the midst of my culinary hustle and bustle to look out of the window over the garden. Most days it is just being its ordinary self, but sometimes I see something special - maybe the greater spotted woodpecker tapping away at the peanut feeder; or a thrush standing quite still in the middle of the lawn; or a sparrow hawk resting on the hedge. And then I take a moment to stop, and stare...

"What is this life if full of care,
   We have no time to stand and stare?
 No time to stand beneath the boughs
   And stare as long as sheep, or cows.
 No time to see, when woods we pass,
   Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
 No time to see, in broad daylight,
   Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
 No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
   And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
   Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this, if full of care,
  We have no time to stand and stare."
                                   - William Henry Davies

Rotten trees and wild posies

Where the tree was...

Even before I look out of my window in the morning, the difference in the quality of light tells me that the tree isn't there.

Rotten on the inside.

I feel a little as though I have suddenly lost a close friend in a car crash. Every morning when I wake, the tree isn't there; and in the evening when I go to bed, the tree is not there. When I walk out of the front door I see in the empty expanse of sky that she is missing; and when I come home, she is still not there.
But she was a sick tree; and though it's possible that she might have lasted many years yet, it is also possible that the next storm would have brought her crashing down, and if that happened it would have been a miracle if no one (or no house) was harmed...

But life goes on, as my mother tells me. And though my tall, graceful sycamore has gone (and the red kites keep swooping over, with nowhere to land), the wild flowers are beginning to bloom in the hedgerows and verges. I went out yesterday and picked myself a posy, and tied it with a piece of grass.

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand,

  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower..."

  - William Blake

Black edging...

Dogmatix can't bear trees being pulled down

Black edging... That's what this post should have. You see, they are cutting down the great sycamore that stands opposite, and I don't think I can bear it. I feel sick in my stomach, as though a piece of me has been ripped out. I know the tree is rotten and dead inside, but that doesn't make it any easier. One doesn't refrain from mourning a loved one simply because their body was riddled with some awful disease.

The worst thing is being here while it's actually happening; every grind and roar of the electric saw as each branch is chopped off and thrown to the ground cuts me to the heart. I can almost feel it moan and cry.

My beautiful tree...

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

                                     - Joyce Kilmer

Early morning walk

Yesterday, my dog and I went for an early morning walk. We set off straight after breakfast; the sun shone, the sky was blue, and every thing looked fresh and bursting with life after a few days of rain. Up above, the flag on the church flapped joyously in the breeze, and in the copse a thrush sang.

++++++++++++++++

I am rather fond of gates.
They have such an intoxicating combination of invitation and forbidden entrance, that I cannot walk past even the most mundane without feeling a little twinge of excitement. On our walk today I had the joy of walking through two kissing gates (so romantic, even if one is, in fact, on one's own...), the second of which opens onto a glorious view of the Chilterns.

We walked slowly on, taking a little path beside the copse where I heard the thrush, and came across another gate; and here was richness! An old iron, padlocked specimen, it's stone pillars covered in ivy, and the path beneath all over-grown with grass, it stood tall and proud in its half-forgotten state. I should not have been surprised to know that the house it led to was named Satis...

Who knew Miss Havisham lived in Oxfordshire?

It also reminded me of Shelley's Ozymandias, except that these 'legs of stone' were surrounded by green fields and not lone and level sands:

"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

"The flowers appear on the earth"

 "...for behold, the winter is past;
     the rain is over and gone.
  The flowers appear on the earth,
     the time of singing has come...

 Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
      and come away.
 O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
      in the crannies of the cliff,
 let me see your face,
      let me hear your voice,
                                                    for your voice is sweet,
                                                         and your face is lovely."
                                                              
                                                                  - from the Songs of Solomon

Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sunbonnet,

  She wore her greenest gown;

She turned to the southwind

  And curtsied up and down.

She turned to the sunlight

  And shook her yellow head,

And whispered to her neighbour:

  "Winter is dead."

                                        -- A A Milne

A warm wind doth blow...

"Where has the winter gone?
The warm winds have sent it away.
The ice has thawed,
The skies have cleared,
And spring is dancing once more."

Which is a little premature, perhaps, but not much...

After a week or so of proper, sharp, wintery weather, with flurries of hail and snow, and hard frosts that froze the pond over, the weather has warmed up again; my thick aran cardigan has returned to the depths of the wardrobe, and winter-visiting red polls have disappeared once more from the bird-feeders. Even the roses, after a few mornings of frost-bite, and have continued to bloom. What a difference from last year, when by this time we had become snow-bound for the second time.

Wheezles and Sneezles

"Christopher Robin

Had wheezles

And sneezles,

They bundled him

Into

His bed.

They gave him what goes

With a cold in the nose

And some more for a cold

In the head."

A A Milne

I have the beginnings of my first winter cold. Could it be the result of too much star-and-moon gazing out of my single-glazed bedroom window in the early hours of the morning? I did notice the other night, as I drew back the curtain to look in awe at the brightness and beauty before me, that a sheet of exceedingly cold air seemed to be lying in wait. However...
The scene that met my eyes, as I braved the cold air, was quite clearly a stage set:
A smooth lawn, pale grey in the moonlight, lay spread out before me, with two apple trees set diagonally to each other half-way down. The deep shadows of the great pine, that rose up majestically behind, spread over the whole; and everything was so still, and the bright light of the moon, that lay fat and serene amongst the stars, seemed to make everything almost as bright as day, only in a colourless, grey-ish green sort of way, that the entire affect was slightly surreal. It was the sort of night when I could quite easily believe in the reality of Tom's Midnight Garden.

No!

       No sun -- no moon!
       No morn -- no noon --
No dawn -- no dusk -- no proper time of day --
       No sky -- no earthly view --
       No distance looking blue --
No road -- no street -- no 't'other side the way' --
       No end to any Row --
       No indications where the Crescents go --
       No top to any steeple --
No recognitions of familiar people --
       No courtesies for showing 'em --
       No knowing em'! --
No travelling at all -- no locomotion --
No inkling of the way -- no notion --
        'No go' -- by land or ocean --
        No mail -- no post --
No news from any foreign coast --
No Park -- no Ring -- no afternoon gentility --
        No company -- no nobility --
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
   No comfortable feel in any member --
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
   No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds --
       November!
                                                    Thomas Hood

"The moon was a ghostly galleon..."

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding -
                   Riding - riding -
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door."
                                                     From 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes
                                        

The moon is almost full. During the last couple of nights she has climbed her way up through the pine tree, giving tantalising glimpses of light through the black mesh of pine needles, until she appeared at last, elegant and regal, surrounded by a hazy mist, and artistically draped in wispy lengths of cloud.
What is it about the moon that is so magical? Even though science has now told us that she has no light of her own, being instead a reflector for the sun, it takes nothing from her ethereal majesty. And why is she a 'she'? Though there can be no doubt at all that it is so. The sun, big and brash and attention-seeking (we hope!) makes himself the king of the day; he rules over the world with overt confidence (and covert insecurity). But the moon, ever calm amidst the storm, noble and pure, who caresses the sleeping world in a gentle, soothing, perfumed light - she is surely the undisputed Queen of the Night.

Beetle poetry...

Today I picked my very first home-grown cherry tomato. It is a little on the small size I admit - hardly likely to make first class at the Horticultural Show later this summer, for instance - but it's mine, and I'm proud of it!

I met Alexander Beetle in the back porch this morning. He shot out from the peanut bag as I got it out from behind a low-wooden chest, in order to refill the bird's peanut feeder, and oozled his way quickly under the shoe rack.

Are you acquainted with Alexander Beetle? Let me introduce you....

"I found a little beetle, so that Beetle was his name,

And I called him Alexander and he answered

  just the same.

I put him in a matchbox, and I kept him all the

   day...

And Nanny let my beetle out -

  Yes Nanny let my beetle out - 

    She went and let my beetle out -

      And Beetle ran away.

                  

She said she didn't mean it, and I never said she did,

She said she wanted matches and she just took off

  the lid,

She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to catch

An excited sort of beetle you've mistaken for a 

  match. 

 

[......]It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be,

And he had a sort of look as if he thought it must be 

  Me,

And he had a sort of look as if he thought he ought 

  to say:

"I'm very very sorry that I tried to run away."

And Nanny's very sorry for you-know-what-

  she-did,

And she's writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the 

  lid.

So Nan and Me are friends, because it's difficult to

  catch

An excited Alexander you've mistaken for a match."

                                                   From 'Forgiven' by A A Milne

"Let us be much with Nature"

I saw a lark the other day, for the first time in my life. It flew down in front of the car, as a friend and I were driving along, and landed in the edge of the field next to us.
What lovely birds they are! Understated, yet elegant, they serenade the skies with their joyous trilling as they hover high up in the blue, calling us to revel with them in summer glory.

Two weeks ago, when we were having long hot days of pure blue skies, I thought that was my favourite kind of weather, but last night we had some rain, and now I'm not so sure. I do love the countryside on a morning after rain. Outside in the garden, a strong wind is chasing itself through the trees and hedges, and above, huge cotton-wool clouds - about three times their usual size - are scudding across the sky. Everywhere there is a feeling of freshness and rejuvenation.

"Let us be much with Nature [....]
Discerning in each natural fruit of earth
Kinship and bond with this diviner clay.
Let us be with her wholly at all hours,
With the fond lover's zest, who is content
If his ear hears, and if his eye but sees;
So we shall grow like her in mould and bent,
Our bodies stately as her blessed trees,
Our thoughts as sweet and sumptuous as her flowers."

Extract from 'On The Companionship With Nature' by Archibald Lampman

Careless Rapture!

"In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a Bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy."
                                                                           Psalm 19 v 4b - 5 (ESV)

This has been the warmest April that England has had for over 300 years (since records began - whether a warmer April was had pre-1659, we'll never know).
I can well believe it. Such blue skies and sunshine as we've been treated to is almost indecent! But what a treat it is to lie out in the sun so early in the year, on properly dry grass - as opposed to the sort that pretends to be dry until you've been sitting on it for ten minutes, at which point it reveals itself to be just damp enough to leave green stains.
And not just for one day, but days on end, including two bank holiday weekends! Most un-British.

The swallows and house-martins returned earlier this week to set up house-keeping for the summer, and add to the general joyous atmosphere by shrieking and swooping over-head in a glorious display.

I think Browning perfectly captures my delight:
"And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!"
                                                      Extract from 'Home-Thoughts, from Abroad'