Brilliance under Slate Skies
July 6, 2012
How green the grass is, how brimming the ponds, how lovely the cloud formations!
How huge and succulent the weeds and how ragged the edges of the flowerbeds. How heavy my boots with mud, how filthy my fingernails, how runny my mascara, how wet my hair. For here in Northamptonshire it has rained six days and nights out of seven for three whole months.
And, with a careless laugh at all my efforts to plant, prune, stake, spray and tie in order to create a garden of beauty, Nature gets on with her own little essay in beauty in a patch of uncultivated ground with no help from me …not even the flinging of a handful of seed.
This is what she has done
And this
and this
Well, really, it’s too heavenly for words and I shouldn’t be annoyed by this showing off on the part of Nature but it does make one want to fling down one’s spade and go indoors for a good long sulk.
Victoria Clayton 
Victoria, I would not be able to sulk if I had a view like that from my windows! Our allotment is ruined, our local community show’s Fruit and Veg Display is in tatters, I am sick of not being able to dry washing outside, but you are right; always there is something to be grateful for and to marvel at.
Lovely photos
Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein
that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.
She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words
that is a field folded.
It is only a dream of the grass blowing
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down
whose secret we see in a children’s game
of ring a round of roses told.
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.
Robert Duncan (1919 – 1988)
from The Opening of the Field (1960)
We have just come back from the Philippines, where I watched water buffalo plough rice fields, and people planting rice,knee deep in water.The sugar cane was growing and the whole Island looked so wonderful and so green!!My son’s beach house is surrounded by coconut trees which were being harvested.Sprightly men were climbing tress and cutting free the coconuts. I stayed on the veranda and watched, rather wary of the falling fruit.They can cause really serious damage if they collect one’s head .Then a beautiful water buffalo, hitched to a cart carried the fruit away.It was monsoon weather, so we had sheets of rain , which dried up very quickly because of the heat.Some contrast to England, I know,but how amazing is the rain!
We had a wonderful time as we were there for a family party.Our new little grandson was christened..another cherished gift.
Love your blog, as always.Keep dry, love Leone
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
With what kind of voice
would the spider cry
in the autumn wind?
Matsuo Bashō (1644 – 1694)