in houses i have lived in - sometimes set on the edge of town - the town has eventually grown and overshot my home. what was once the edge of town has become middle suburbia. where once i could bike to the fields and watch the sun set. is now a carefully manicured, precisely organized curving street-formed range of houses.
happily, at this moment i am one hundred metres from farmland. the same distance from woodland.
kipling knew this same quandary - how to live amongst his kind whilst also being available to the countryside?
"autumn path through the woods" camille pissaro
weather and rain have undone it again,
and now you would never know
there was once a road through the woods
before they planted the trees.
it is underneath the coppice and heath,
and the thin anemones.
only the keeper sees
that, where the ring-dove broods,
and the badgers roll at ease,
there was once a road through the woods.
"lane near a small town" sisley
yet, if you enter the woods
of a summer evening late,
when the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
where the otter whistles his mate,
(they fear not men in the woods,
because they see so few)
you will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
and the swish of a skirt in the dew,
steadily cantering through
the misty solitudes,
as though they perfectly knew
the old lost road through the woods . . . .
but there is no road through the woods.
excerpted from "the way through the woods"
rudyard kipling
MESSY BOOTS AND POCKETS OF JOY
3 days ago
12 comments:
Hello Tuesday Steven
These images are so beautiful - peaceful, end of summer colours
and the Kipling is great.
thank you for today's treats - this is so exciting - you come up with lovely bits and pieces...
I am going to look up the full poem now...see what you do...send me on rewarding expeditions...
thanks Steven
Happy days
Thank you for inspiration,Im very greatfull to find such a wonderful places as your blogs,peace and love and lots of biking trough your enchanted landscape. Ciao
hi delwyn, the full poem is lovely but i picked out what i most liked. enjoy the journey. have a peaceful day. steven
hi sandra, i'm glad you enjoy your visits here and then through the places that i find and share. have a peaceful day. steven
What a beautiful post. The paintings are exquisite as are the snips of poetry... as is the quandary of countryside/civilization.
Give me the country or give me the city; I enjoy both locations. Suburbs, however, truly creep me out.
Keep on putting your beautiful vibrations into the world, Steven. I salute you!
hi reya, thanks for the generous compliments.
i can find goodness in either city or country. i choose to hover right at the meeting place of both - if possible! i love the electric energy of cities and i also love the natural energy of the countryside. there's something of both braided in me. have a peaceful day. steven
Love that Sisley steven - reminds me a bit of Hobemma's Avenue.
I too have had the experience of living in the country and then it growing into a town. I went back to my birthplace (a small Lincolnshire village) a few years ago and it was a small town - the effect was quite disturbing.
I am incredibly lucky to live on four wooded acres along the river, right in town. I don't have access to the perks of the big city, though, living in the midwest.
trout ringed pools
I like the sound of that.
hi willow, you really are incredibly lucky. i'll hazhard a guess that you are deservedly so!!
i have dreamed for much of my adult life of living on enough land that i could sit in solitude somewhere by a pond or under a tree. the dream ain't dead yet!!!! have a peaceful day. steven
hi travis, thanks for visiting. i'm guessing from your picture that fishing is a priority for you. i love fishing. just the casting and reeling in. not the actual catching. i know that's strange to a fisherman but i love the relaxation of fishing without actually catching anything. have a peaceful day. steven
hi weaver, i hadn't seen hobemma's work before so i looked it up and the connection is really obvious. thanks for opening my eyes to hobemma's work. you know you can't go back to where you were born or grew up. i've done it and it's difficult. have a peaceful day. steven
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