their small flights

saturday morning.

lemon yellow sunshine.

coffee.

a small stack of novels partly read.

almost autumn.

my favourite time of year!

the acrid scent of burning weeds

came up from an unseen fire

somewhere in the meadows

below the road.

a thrush, balanced on the top twig

of a fragrant fir-tree,

sang with piercing sweetness.

in and out of the yellow broom-coverts

woodlarks played,

made their small flights

and sang their small songs.

words excerpted from texts by mary webb

hans anderson brendekilde

the clouds of dawn

you've probably experienced the long nights . . .

the lonely walk-around-the-house wondering why and whatever nights . . .

the nights when your thoughts are filled

with everything that is sad

or worrisome

or that needs resolving quickly . . .

lists.

insistent lists!

i get those every so often . . .

and when i do,

i've noticed that i don't like the dark.

i also don't like the artificiality of a light "turned on".

and while i wish for the sun . . .

the sun takes forever to rise

and then arrives far too early . . . .

and without exception,

when the sun rises and

i realize that the day has begun

and i'm unprepared . . .

then

i wish

to be in a simpler place,

in a simpler time . . .

come with me for a moment.

at last came the blessed dawn

and the mist lay like a vasty shining cloud on the place,

but as the sun swam up,

full of power and warmship . . .

"lifting mist"

not to be gainsayed,

the mist came loose all in a piece,

and lifted slow,

till there was a space betwixt its under side and the mere,

where the coots swam,

like bees running about between two boards.

"morning breaks"

then one half of the tree trunks came free,

so that the forest seemed to be mounded up with snow.

it lifted and lifted,

and at last went into the sky,

and failed amid the clouds of dawn.

"a summer place"

then the clouds faded,

and there were only the proper heavens,

blue as bird's eye.

all artwork john daniel neubauer
all italicized text mary webb

a language older than the oldest script of man

it's late august and happily

my day often begins with birdsong.

sometimes its the cooing of mourning doves,

sometimes the cawing of my friends the crows,

and some days it's the territorial imperative

of the neighbourhood robins.

goldfinches are less frequent contributors to the morning chorus,

but their distinctive voices add a nice touch.

one of my favourite writers

- mary webb -

wrote these beautiful long ago words about birdsong:

wood pigeons spoke in their deep voices

from the dark pines

across the batch -

a language older than the oldest script of man.

cuckoos shouted in the wind-riven larches,

green beyond imagining . . .

shishkin "brook in birch forest " (click on image to enlarge)

a blackbird meditated aloud in high rhapsody,

very leisured,

but very tireless,

on matters deeper than the coppice pool far below,

deep as the mystery of the chipped, freckled eggs in his nest in the thorn.

polonov "overgrown pond" (detail) (click on image to enlarge)

there's deep knowledge in their songs.

sometimes joyous, sometimes fearful,

sometimes threatening, sometimes reminding.

in the wintertime

when the birds have for the most part gone south

to keep their bodies and their heritage intact,

i miss their songs.

i miss their incredible wheeling and diving across and through the sky.

i miss the sound of the air passing through their feathers.

i miss the magical discoveries of their eggs.

cracked afterthoughts after the wonder of birth.

soon they'll start thinking about leaving.

so for now, i pay special attention to their songs.

holding them inside as i do the idea of green.

leaves, the rustling of an afternoon breeze through the trees.

the sensation of flowers.

the draping of a humid breeze across my body.

the feeling of grass under my bare feet.

(italicized words by mary webb from her novel "gone to earth".)

the spring of joy: mary webb

longtime golden fish readers will know that one of my favourite authors is the english writer mary webb. among her writing is a beautiful collection entitled "the spring of joy". a collection of heartfelt love letters to nature, "the spring of joy" makes for a gentle reminder to enjoy the simple places, to be aware of the little moments and details, for it is easy to experience them in totality but more fulfilling to enjoy them in their most intimate setting.



from her book "the spring of joy" . . . "if you will go out on some june morning, before the earliest bee comes droning by, when the stripes of sunrise lie right across the awakening earth, you will know the fascination of shadows. on such a day they are almost as blue as chicory. as a child, i remember standing awe-stricken at the strange beauty of a well-known field in the magic of a june dawn. it had a line of tall trees in its eastern hedge, and if you watched while the sun rose, you saw what had been a wide, grey expanse suddenly spanned by swart, prostrate giants. perhaps the memory of such fresh delights, like dew in the flower-cup of life, may linger even after the flower is gathered. quite early on a summer morning, if you look down an ugly street in a busy town, you will scarcely know it. the rows of houses have ceased to look dull, and have become the opposing camps of light and darkness; the street is a tessellated pavement of blue and yellow; the bush that looks so pathetically inadequate by day throws quite a forest of obscurity and becomes mysterious. the shadow of a tree upon any house blesses it, weaving with its cool, hypnotic gestures a soothing quiet; but the place, of all human habitations, where it best loves to linger is a village street. there each life is framed in garden and orchard; companies of spirit-shapes go trembling up and down the humble walls and roofs all day from the multitude of surrounding leaves; in the highway the sunshine sleeps by the shadow of an ivied wall--disturbed only once in an hour, and then simply turning in its sleep. if those other shades, the troubles of life, have become too dense and shouldered out the light, so that the sick imagination sees them as crouching beasts of prey, a pilgrimage to such a tranquil place in lilac time may help to set things right again. the slightly blurred colours of reflections--water-shadows--are more vivid than reality, as if water were a brighter medium than air; what they lose in strength of outline through the motion of the current, they gain in dreamy charm. were ever forget-me-nots half so blue as those that gaze skyward from clear water? did you know all the sweetness of flushed wild-rose faces until you saw them sleeping in a stream? some spell lies on rivers where willows bend over them and transfuse them with tender green, with depths of swaying leaf-reflections, lighter in the centre, where the over-hanging tracery shows the sky, very dark at the sides, where the grassy banks are steep and the leaves thick. coming round a curve, you stop with a sudden intake of the breath, dazzled by a blaze of glory. there stands on the bank and there lies in the flood a tree of beaten gold, gently moving against the sky, gently quivering in the water, flinging largess of its yellow money into the vistaed gold of its reflection. the sun makes each leaf transparent, and the whole picture is ardent as the face of some angel of a flaming star. as the spirit strives to gather some of the beauty, it longs to be less finite, less bounded; it desires an infinite future in which to reflect universal loveliness."

oh my!