Category Archives: Ecology
New Year Poems
Happy New Year, all.
I haven’t been on line so much over the winter. Not much to make one want to be, in many ways.
Anyway, I wrote a couple of poems on New Years Day, one a little more hopeful than the other.
Hope you like them.
Rewilding Little Lives
Flowers in my window box this New Years Day
Brought smiles to see flies upon the white petals
Delightfully drawn to pollinate these late blooms
Providing provender in winter and spring seeds.
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Insight that acts of rewilding can be so easy:
Simply leave a little land for life, and equally
Life will return once we allow it land, thus we
Keep everything alive a little longer by these
Little acts and actions, ceding some concrete
So when our concrete recedes life can yet proceed.
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Nothing Changes On New Year’s Day
We kiss at midnight and wish
One another the best, that
The world will rise above our
Worries with the coming year;
.
Raise our champagne to celebrate
Our survival of the last, then we
Rest in unhurried slumber, until
The bells ring in the faithful for
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New year’s Service, and we
Step out to see too the debris,
Finding revellers have left their
Refuse in the most amazing places.
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Picking up a cracked plastic party
Trumpet, we ponder if we will play
These in the next decades, and stroll
Slowly to our sacred spaces, with
.
A grim smile, while the sun slants low,
Watching Earth go round just the way
It spun yesterday, today.
If only Winter was the Old Winter
Embrace the Rain
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The ginkos are gone the colour of
Midsummer glare, fans finally falling.
Beeches now brilliant auburn, poplars
Drifting orange yellow instead of white
Cotton. Leaves lifted as easily in whipped-
Up gusts with rain against windows.
.
The cold requires we bundle up
In gloves and hoods, but we embrace
Winter weather, smile with chapped lips,
Rubbing ruddy cheeks, like a proof
We’re not in so much trouble, perhaps
The world is not turning terribly
Scorching dry, desiccating all round us.
.
We cling to this chill as an indication of
Lessened danger: deceiving ourselves,
Like lung cancer patients, counting dear
Cough-free hours as signs we’re in the clear.
A simple idea as autumn finally feels like it’s here, with plenty of rain these last few weeks.
But of course, it’s not quite winter, at least not winter as it was. In the local park, while the willows are shedding their leaves, these trees are coming in to bloom, as if it were February already…
Second Spring
Stop Awhile to Smile
Second spring seems to wreath
Earth’s skin instead of autumn.
Songbirds sing and bees visit
Flowers adorning leaves auburn.
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Trees sprouting catkins, as if
Winter isn’t imminent, and energy
Best invested in building up
Stores to see it through in utility.
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I, too, should be inside, busy
Through fall with words, building
For stores ‘ere the festive season.
But I’ll pause here as ev’ning’s gilding
.
Landscape lying ‘neath green veneer,
To fill a vital store of good cheer.
So we’ve had what they call a little summer of St Martin… except it was a heatwave. We were up in the thirties every day for over a week, but since it’s October, it cooled during the longer nights down to the teens. And it seems some trees etc think it’s spring again, with the balanced hours of sun and the high temps. So stuff is spouting. Dandelions are dandy, but trees are just wasting energy.
The scenes, however, since we’ve had some rain in September so I just soaked it all up instead of working, which I should be, to re-edit and republish my first five adult novels.
More on that before Christmas!
Life is short. And it seems even the trees think so.
They say the weather is going to change today. I think it already has.
Slowing down Spring
.
Slowing Down Spring
Leaden heavy clouds lay upon the land,
Slowing its spin, it seems, the wind
Whistling chill, winds back spring:
So all pauses, apparently, and allows us,
Perhaps, appreciate all a little longer:
.
Continued calling of song thrushes,
Tree-creepers, warblers and woodpeckers;
The candle cones perched upon pines;
Chandeliers of chestnut blooms
Letting petals swirl to gather in drifts
And dropping fruits of tiny infant seeds;
New green sprigs on twigs of spruce trees;
Dandelions, the sign of spring, still
The dominant design of spring,
Drawing swarms of insects, revived
As running rivers; glowing gloss and
Ripples of graining barley, regaining
The aspect of May in Spain; golden
Sunspots, when rays sneak out of clouds,
That simply seep into souls like
Helium to help them soar…
Making every day a delayed delight
.
We might not see for many more:
As spring shortens ever more and
Assimilates to frightful summer
Sooner than we’re prepared for.
.
We had a few weeks with cooler temperatures, which was a big relief, even in Navarra. Not so much rain in many places, but it gave us time to really see the green before it turns to gold. Which it was threatening to too soon this hear – to dusty tan and brown, too. And it seems spring will shorten as we go forward into climate chaos.
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Of course, in our village the verges went brown after the council yet again sprayed it with glyphosphate… And one local farmer did the same to his field verges, which just ruins my day as I cycle up the hill…
Spring Springing, Sprung
The Great Unfurling
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Potted hydrangea upon a windowsill
Sets forth fresh leaves: tender, verdant
Sheets break out along dry sticks, fragile.
I daily watch them form as March marches.
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Granted the gift of infinity of seconds,
In observation, I wish to break out,
Past the patio to spend
Spring beyond, experience
Every plant’s rebirth and blossoming,
To miss not this great unwinding,
.
From forest floor, wild asparagus and
Ferns unfurling, breaking forth
Each bud, young leaves extending,
Spreading, fat fingered
Fronds from chestnut trunks;
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Witness every sprig of speedwell,
Burst of buttercups,
Spray of daisies, and breeze
Dancing dandelions, dainty dog violets.
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Later let me see the fall
Of flower petals to the path,
From each high floral bouquet:
Dashing with pink and white
The grass, creating a colourful carpet,
Delicate to delight our way,
.
Through this season; so short, yet
Too intense to appreciate the display.
Been a busy few weeks with little posting – though a fair bit of poetry and some writing, and lots of reading! But mostly just enjoying the spring, which is blooming lovely, if too dry in a lot of places.
I just spent the weekend down in Andalucia, and the heat is rising quickly there, so it’s almost summer, with swifts screaming in the skies already. On the train on the way down, it was clear many fields will give little harvest this year.
Spring is always my most distracted season and this year is no exception. or an exception to the extent that I’ve decided to spend as much time as I can just soaking it up, so I spent hours staring out the train window rather than writing or reading. Nevertheless, the words come, stored up for winter or spluttered out for a short poem.
Hope you like it.
PS, when I returned after the Easter Holidays the hydrangea was nearly dead, having been left unwatered. I gave it some and hope it will recover (it’s not mine, by the way!)
Little Victories
Well, this is a little victory in itself.
This book took a long time to get here.
I had the idea way back when I published The Soul of Adam Short, thinking about a YA novel set in Ireland, and the part of Ireland I know best is obviously South County Dublin and North Wicklow.
The problem of fires and farmers and the protection of nesting birds was something that started back then, and of course has kept going years later….
It merged with an idea I had when I was around 17….
The characters came separately, from a different inspiration.
It took a while to get the pen to paper, but my first typed document has a date of June 2015.
Then the first draft was done in 2018.
Yes. I can be 3 years on a book that’s only around 60k words!
I gave a copy of the third or fourth draft to my family – the younger ones – asking for feedback.
Crickets.
For a couple of years.
I got on with writing my long novel, Paul and the Pyramid Builders.
Then I asked my ex-publisher of Adam Short to have a look at it, and see if it was for the drawer.
She says it’s not.
So here it is. Edited and proof-read and ready for reviews.
.
Here’s the blurb….
Nicky and her two new friends, Mark and Ash, spend spring racing their mountain bikes through south Dublin – both down hillsides and hitching rides from HGVs – and exploring their feelings towards one another. They’re aghast to one day find an illegal fire on the mountain, just set by a farmer. When the police say they can do nothing about it, the three determine to catch the culprit red-handed. But life is as complicated as love, and as Nicky comes to terms with this, she discovers that sometimes you have to accept whatever little victories come your way.
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It’s dedicated to my good friend Phil, no longer with us, who was a great man for the biking round south Dublin and Wicklow, though more on a road bike than mountain bike.
It’s on Pre Order now, and will be published before my birthday – Paddy’s Day to be exact.
March is when this novel kicks off, when the fires that beleaguer the Dublin and Wicklow mountains should be stopped rather than started.
Anyone who’s interested in a review copy can email me at davidjmobrienauthor@gmail.com
Happy St. David’s Day, everyone.
Don’t forget, if you see a brush fire in Ireland from today, it’s illegal.
Winter, as it Should Be
Somewhat as it Should Be
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Frozen fog has shut off any sights without the vale:
Only a few fields below the road and trees along:
Ash still green but paling, poplars rising glorious
In gold and rowan orange glowing. Goldfinches flee
But return easily to glean seeds to fuel against the cold
Ice clad grass banks and crown clods in shaded corners.
Chilled fingers fumble at the pen with these words, so I
Turn to the house, for use in clutching logs, and later,
Thawed to type by the fire, stopping by the spring
To fill the water bottle for a dram. The flow has not
Yet been helped by the recent rain and snow, I see,
But we’ve returned, somewhat, to winter as it should be.
.
I wrote this a few weeks back, when the weather was a little different. It’s clear that this Christmas is not white in much of Europe, but it’s whiteout in much of North America…. neither exactly what anyone wants…
Well, anyway, happy Christmas. Hope you’re warm wherever you are.
Glorious
And It’s Glorious
The storm has eased, eventually.
Though cold, trees still, dripping yet,
Leaves left, strewn upon the street:
Sheets of gold and ochre. Streams of
Sticks and twigs clog the gutters,
Grown to spreading pools, reflecting
Gorgeous tempest survivors overhead.
.
And it’s glorious: a rare, raw, glimpse
Of our world without the concrete.
At least until the sweepers resume,
Scouring nature with their plastic brooms.
A Few Seconds of Eternity
A few Seconds of Eternity
A hubbub surrounds several idling cars:
Kids running between house and driveway
As the gang gets ready to leave on Sunday,
Carrying bags and banging shutters closed.
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Asking, “Have we left anything behind?”
“Well, here it stays till next weekend,” replied,
For we’ve baths and dinners to have this evening
If we ever get on the road home.
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Eventually, the door locked and all packed in,
Bar me, standing in the garden as the cars
Reverse out, waiting to close the gate, taking in
The scene surrounding us as every evening:
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Silence settling o’er the vale as the breeze
Slows to swing round from afternoon heat
On the southern plains beyond the hills,
Set in scarlet, under clouds tinged pink.
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The sparrows have ceased squabbling
In the hedges for roosting spots, chirping
Softly as crickets; the sky turquoise east,
Glowing golden west; the oaks go on growing
.
Under Saturn and early stars starting to shine,
As they have for eons, breathing in, quietly,
As the gate squeaks shut; all is mine,
For a few seconds, immersed in an eternity.
Often ‘Tis the little moments that make this life wonderful.
Last Dance
The Dance of the Gnats
In slanting sunlight along hedges warmed
Hordes of gnats amass in glittering swarms
Like plumes of dust thrust up
From the ground burst open, abounding,
In an ultimate race to lay eggs ere autumn:
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A bountiful sign summer rests on last legs,
Yet, at least, as the flourishing knots
Feed the gathering flocks of swallows
Ere their exodus, fill lizards left lying on
Stone even cooling, fatten bats come twilight,
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An indication our Earth brims, still:
Life resides, ready to thrive when we let it.
While they fly I will delight
In the dance as long as lasts this light.
Autumn has finally arrived, with a storm, some rain and wind and now chilly foggy mornings. And very happy we are to see it, and the flies dying as they should to be born again next spring…
David JM O'Brien 