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Slowing down Spring
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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:
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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
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We might not see for many more:
As spring shortens ever more and
Assimilates to frightful summer
Sooner than we’re prepared for.
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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,
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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,
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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!)
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.
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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.
A Bird’s Eye View…
A Bird’s Eye View of Dearth
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A kestrel watches from its perch aloft
Through the wheat stalks, sunset yellow,
A cat to the corner, treading soft,
Seeking game in shadowed hedgerow.
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It’s fur gleams golden in the sun,
Sleek lines lie wide by several ounces:
Fast as the raptor flies, it couldn’t run,
But furred predator prefers pounces.
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A lizard flickers in crinkling grass.
The hawk would swiftly clutch the prey
To feed last nestling, but alas:
The cat clenches its quarry today.
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Blinking as the fed feline bites,
The bird scans the straw for insects
Sooner left for lesser hawks and shrikes;
Still, scant life of any size it detects.
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Turning attention to the trees,
Tinged brown by fire fuelled by snow
Fall felling boughs, then heavy heat,
Finds as few pickings as down below.
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Frogs diminished by the dryness
Since even before spring arrived:
Only two eggs laid, to cry less
As sibling ensures one survived.
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Now, itself barely clinging to perch,
The raptor would wonder, as declines,
How only scorched earth left to search
Seems still to fill so litters of felines.
I write a lot of poems, and a lot of my poems are inspired from what I see outside in Nature.
However, I rarely take a photograph of what inspires me – if I am thinking of the poem, it usually never occurs to me to take a snap. I don’t think of posting the poem at that stage, and then I realise I’ve no photos to illustrate it. Of course, going back to get a photo of a kestrel along the wire where I saw it is next to impossible, though I do see them when I’m driving in and out of the village.
So the two photos in this post are clearly not of a kestrel. One is a bird of prey, yes, but the other is a bee-eater, a species which I’ve been trying to get a decent snap of for years, because they really don’t hang around when human’s are near, despite the fact that they are to be heard over head delighting with voices as colourful as their plumage, which is to me, the best in any bird in Europe.
Both were taken while cycling near the village, where there’s still a huge abundance of birds of prey, such as hen harriers, booted eagles, red kites and golden eagles, to name just the ones I can identify!!
And there is an overabundance of feral cats, too…
Enjoying Spring?
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The Enjoyment of Spring
February leaves light frost on the park grass,
But the birdsong cutting the chill silence belies
This skin of sparkling crystals; harkens from
Recently breakfasted birds animated to action
As the era of excitement approaches, already
Cold soil broken by budding narcissus prepared to
Perform their demure golden pouts and beside
The warming morning rays upon me shows
The strengthening sun will soon scatter the ice
And afternoon will even induce disrobing, thus
Dallying in sun-drenched dales.
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Yet, still, I feel
Almost ill at enjoying these delightful days when
We know elsewhere gale forced storm surges
Swamp grasslands with salt, wind whip trunks
Down like twigs, just as most we need them
Growing. The mountain slopes are bare of snow:
Instead several fires on-going, and a bushel
Of other evils await.
Even here, these trees
Are leaving too soon; petals, peeping weakly
Into shape shall feed few bees this spring,
And we fear for their fruits come summer.
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For the grass beneath the white seems damp,
But even the soil is dry, and blades soon scorched
As we wait for rains, disappeared more than delayed,
During a drought seeming set to last till March.
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I wrote this poem after a pause in the park on the way to work, the same day I saw this video of the storm surge back in Ireland where they were hit by several named storms while our farmers in Spain were desperate for rain.
Late Rains
Late April Rains
The rain makes everything all right,
Like blessed water flowing over lips.
Birds sing sweeter as if assured
Life will hang on in for spring,
As insects emerge from dry refuge
To delight in the damp leaves.
Eardrums encounter drips gently
Caress the mind into peaceful ease:
Merged in memories of seasons spent
Naïve as nestlings of summers to come.
It’s a rainy day today, which reminded me of a poem I wrote a month or so ago, about how the rain is welcome when the land is parched. At least in imagination it staves off the drought to come and we live a little longer.
Missing things before they’re gone
The Lilacs Have Already Faded
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We wait as children for Christmas,
The bursting forth of buds, spread of
Poppies along bearding barley fields;
Delighting in drifting aspen down.
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But if we perchance glance away
During spring’s apotheosis we find
The lilacs have already faded, and
Summer swiftly advances unto autumn.
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Just as a blink allows the bastards
Take flame and machine to the trees,
Scraping drains in absence of rain,
Leaving shoots shorn dead as winter.
I wrote this last week when I was in my garden, seeing that the patch I didn’t mow the week before now sported a lovely little orchid.
But the lilac I had planted just beyond had lost its one flowerhead, having faded to brown already in the space from one weekend to the next.
And I thought of how quickly the spring passes, as usually, even when we vow not to miss it. It’s too short, even when its only summer on its way, we all know where summer leads….
Then I saw while on a cycle what the local roads authority had done, in May, to the hedges and scrub alongside the roads around the village – gone along with who knows what machinery and razed everything down to the ground. Of course, if they discovered plastic rubbish under that bush, they left that there.
What kind of mindset allows this to happen? Where are the leaders?
The locals just shrugged it off. It seems they think all this can be infinitely replaced, not that it’s a last bastion of such beauty.
Is it not possible to see that we are losing things before they’re lost, or are we doomed to miss only what we have completely exterminated?
The village in the north of Spain is not the only place where such destruction takes place, of course. Just last week a huge swath of Killarney National Park was burned by negligence or intentional malice.
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On the other hand, I just finished reading Anne Frank’s diary for the second time, after about a 35 year gap… and I was struck by her passages about Nature.
Just like many during the lockdowns we went through, Anne realised that joy and peace can come from looking at the sky and the trees. Of course, even at thirteen and fourteen, Anne Frank was a very self-aware person compared to most around her, even then, never mind now.
I took snaps of the paragraphs. She wonders if her confinement indoors so long has made her so “mad about Nature” which is probably true to some extent, just as it was for many others. But she sees it as a medicine, “which can be shared by rich and poor alike,” and “the one thing for which there is no substitute.”
My question is whether that last line has sunk into our collective consciousness, or it is just that we can’t fathom our existence without Nature – even it if is out there, waiting for when we want it, after we’re released from prison, or our confinement, or we fancy a walk away from our computers? Until it isn’t.
And can we act as if something is lost before it actually is, giving us the chance to save it at the last minute.
Because we’re down to the last minute.
Another Spring
I took a trip to the river some days ago and sat down and thought of how different this spring is – much drier or course, but simply because we can go outside and see it the way we weren’t able to last year.
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Another Spring
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The soil thirsts for showers, but still
Seeds sprout green and buds flower.
Warblers and mistle thrushes whistle
Busily from the bramble bushes.
Upon thermals, raptors stall, surveying
Below, from distant forests, cuckoos call.
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I sit upon a stone wall, watching
Wagtails bobbing below a waterfall,
Remembering, last year, the view
Of a robin, a tree, we then held dear,
And our feelings thence unfree
Behind our self-made fence
As we waited to leave impatiently,
Even as news came to grieve.
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A brace of ducks take flight as slowly
Afternoon descends to night,
Slapping away the tiny silence, sweetly;
The air is filled with blossom scent,
And as the ducks take wing, I swear,
I shall never miss another spring.
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the small picture view – how wonderful it is just to see this instead of concrete or our own bare walls inside. Long may we leave our houses and be greeted with life.
February means it’s Spring in some places
They’re Only Daisies
Spring mildness brings blooming back
A splash of buttercups, daisies
And dandelions, and my
Heart soars to see these
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As if the summer burst forth
In fullness of fuchsia, orchids,
Roses and hydrangea,
Even though they’re only daisies.
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Perhaps such sights would send
Soul soaring to much higher delight,
But little low pleasures enchant me
Easily, and I find myself exultant
To discover thus elation on a daily basis.
Well, we’ve survived the first month of 2021, which clearly hasn’t turned out as groovy as we’d hoped, so far.
I am patiently waiting, like the rest of the world, on a vaccine to be offered to me. I hope to get one before summer and be able to travel home to see folks.
Besides that, my life is pretty normal, apart from wearing masks all day.
School is still in session presidentially in Spain, and we’ve had few problems since we’re masking and gelling all the time.
My son’s swimming lessons restarted! other after school activities are going on without problems, too.
The bars were open at 30% occupancy, but are now only open for outside seating, but we can have a pincho on a Saturday afternoon with the kids now that the snow has melted and milder weather has returned.
I know it’s not spring here in Spain till the second half of March, but there are flowers out there, and I always stick to my Irish seasons anyway. Except for August. That’s still summer!
And I am feeling hopeful we won’t be kept inside during spring the way we were last year. Just a walk outside the city walls is all I ask.
I’ve written a fair few poems since Christmas, and I am slowly working through my WIP, Palu and the Pyramid Builders – last third of the manuscript, with 200k written so far.
I’ll be looking for beta readers in a year or two!
Meanwhile, I hope to post more poems this spring, and if you’re looking for a quick read, my novels are all still available for the time being, including my newest novella, The Logical Solution.
Crazy Weather… just who’s the crazy one around here?
They say you never know yourself if you’re going crazy… perhaps it seems those around you are tho ones who are really crazy.
We call this weather crazy, but aren’t we really the crazy ones for not recognising it for what it is, and indeed really basically fucking batshit crazy for letting it happen without doing anything useful to stop or slow it, and in fact being the cause of it all…. and all the time knowing that it’s going to come back and not just bite us on the arse, but beat the shit out of us, till any sense we have left will be knocked out of us.
The Reaping of Disdain
Pink blossoms add extra beauty
To an autumnal almond tree:
Orange and auburn leaves left
Before falling with the frost
At least formally expected
If it arrives as it did normally in
November.
Sun and clear sky
Seem apt background to marvel
At young walnuts dotted on a
Bare-leaved tree, wondering if we
Will get a second harvest this year.
Like the oilmen grinning as the
Ice melts for their machines to
Begin drilling without awaiting
Spring,
We reap the short-term
Gains until the true harvest of
Our disdain, ignorance, apathy
Ripens in silent screaming of
Ecosystems stretched to snapping.
David JM O'Brien 