Trees Against The Sky

On National Poetry Day, a poem about trees and nature

Trees Against The Sky

Edge of Wood in Cumbria

Pines against the sky,

Pluming the purple hill;

Pines . . . and I wonder why,

Heart, you quicken and thrill?

Wistful heart of a boy,

Fill with a strange sweet joy,

Lifting to Heaven nigh -

Pines against the sky.

Palms against the sky,

Failing the hot, hard blue;

Stark on the beach I lie,

Dreaming horizons new;

Heart of my youth elate,

Scorning a humdrum fate,

Keyed to adventure high -

Palms against the sky.

Oaks against the sky,

Ramparts of leaves high-hurled,

Staunch to stand and defy

All the winds of the world;

Stalwart and proud and free,

Firing the man in me

To try and again to try -

Oaks against the sky.

Olives against the sky

Of evening, limpidly bright;

Tranquil and soft and shy,

Dreaming in amber light;

Breathing the peace of life,

Ease after toil and strife . . .

Hark to their silver sigh!

Olives against the sky.

Cypresses glooming the sky,

Stark at the end of the road;

Failing and faint am I,

Lief to be eased of my load;

There where the stones peer white

in the last of the silvery light,

Quiet and cold I'll lie -

Cypresses etching the sky.

Trees, trees against the sky -

O I have loved them well!

There are pleasures you cannot buy,

Treasurers you cannot sell,

And not the smallest of these

Is the gift and glory of trees. . . .

So I gaze and I know now why

It is good to live - and to die. . . .

Trees and the Infinite Sky.

 Robert William Service (1874-1958)

Field of Gold

Gold coins, gold rings and trinkets? No thanks, give me a field of golden barley...a gift from nature.

There is a field of barley growing alongside a road I regularly walk and I cannot pass it without stopping for a while to savour the whole scene and soak in the atmosphere.  Something about it arrests my attention and calls to something deep inside me  I think many people feel the same way and it was such a place that moved Sting to pen that beautiful song 'Fields of Gold.'

Each time is a new experience as the weather creates a different vista.  I think a field of barley shows us the subtleties of the atmosphere as few other natural features do.  Of course, trees move and bend according to wind direction and strength, sometimes being tossed about in gales or the leaves barely moving in a gentle breeze.  Perhaps it is because barley is smaller, more fragile and flexible that it is so responsive to every movement of the wind and air currents.  Growing in dense rows, the sheer quantity of barley is dramatic in itself and there is no finer site than the spectacle of the wind gently blowing and the sea of barley flowing in one direction as though an invisible hand is gently brushing across the tops. Looked at individually, the ears have a certain beauty and the ‘beard,’ the long tufts growing above them, give a feathery look to the plant.  The ‘beard’ is unique to barley and is what distinguishes it from wheat.

Yesterday evening was sunny and hot and we went for a walk, passing this barley field.  It was about 8 o clock and the sun was slowly sinking in the sky.  The effect of the sun’s rays was breath-taking as it cast its light through the ‘beard’ giving them a ruby hue transforming the field of gold into a field of strawberry-blond. Depending on the time of day, the degree of sunlight, amount of cloud, or presence of wind the same field is almost an entirely different place in look, sound and mood. 

That field to me is like a picture.  It is framed by hedges and fences with a wider backdrop of trees, fields and fells. It is always lovely and a pleasure to contemplate but unlike other great works of art, this one is fresh, vibrant and ever-changing.  But then it is painted by the greatest of all artists, the hand of nature.

Fields of Gold performed by Eva Cassidy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQB45Vk62ps 

Happiness is....

      "The more childish and unworldly a person’s disposition is, the more happiness he gets from such simple things as air, water, sun, earth-mould, sand, leaves, bread, butter, honey, or the still more primeval sensation of a certain delicious drowsiness in his own limbs.  

This is what I mean by my recurrent image of the ichthyosaurus. What I am trying to indicate by “the ichthyosaurus-sensation” is nothing less than this simple primeval happiness in the immediate experience of being alive. 

To blink at that mysterious god, the sun; to stare at that equivocal goddess, the moon ; to watch the incredible shapes of the clouds, as they pile up above the horizon ; to observe in early afternoon, a certain yellowish light upon a brick wall; to note a certain dark-blue wave of colour, as it sinks down upon the roofs of a city after sunset; to catch the ink- black silhouettes of bare branches against a November sky, just before the windows are lamp-lit in a roadside village ; to feel the ploughed-up earth under your feet, and a cold wet wind upon your face ; to sit over a fire of wood or of red, coals, thinking the long thoughts of vague race-memories—all these things, belonging to a world of psychic-physical sensations that go back to the beginnings of consciousness, are the stuff of which the secret of life is made."

John Cowper Powys

In Defense of Sensuality

Riding Out the Storm

 

Yet another storm.  They’re naming them now. We are only in January but already have reached the letter J.  Today Storm Jonas arrived in the area, and without seeming rude to Jonas, it really would be better if he had stayed away.  A storm by a different name but bringing the same as the others; gales and rain.  

It is becoming all too familiar now – the blanket of grey cloud that throws a half-light across the days, the sound of the wind roaring across the fields and hills, and the incessant rain beating on the windows and soaking everything, animate and inanimate, plant, animal and human.  So yet again, the wind gushes through the tree-tops flinging the branches from side to side, and rocking the trunks so violently that I am amazed that more of them are not felled by this invisible force.  The bodiless roar is almost deafening at times as it rushes along the lane, building momentum as it goes, before slamming  into the group of trees at the bottom.  It ploughs into them with a howl like a battle-cry, and the firs and birches whoosh, rumble, and clamour back in defiance. 

From its vantage point in a solitary rowan nearby, the raging battle is quietly watched by a ring-necked dove. 

I notice the dove as I finish securing the shed-door against the storm.  It sits with its underbelly covering its claws and its feathers fluffed out for warmth, hunkered down against the wind and rain.  Though the tree rocks fiercely, it simply rests there swaying in tandem with the branches, watching.  From time to time, it closes its eyes, a picture of serenity and repose amid the drama of raging forces.

Mini rivulets of water run down my coat onto my legs, soaking into my trousers, sneaking under my hood and the wetness cools my skin. My face tingles under the slaps dealt out by the wind and rain.  I head inside to the warmth and comfort there. Glancing back at the rowan tree, I am again struck by the stillness of the dove amid the turbulence of the scene.  I leave the bird sitting quietly in the tree while I go indoors to read and write and ride out the storm in my way, just as it is doing in its way.   

Around us both, the wind continues to roar and rage, and the rain fills the streams and rivers and soaks an already saturated landscape. Jonas will be with us for a while.