February walk

The day started with thrushes and a deer barking, the sun shining through early morning mist. I put on wellies to walk through the fields, past the woods along the stream, stopped to take a photo of some of the neighbour’s daffodils, the ones the sheep have left.

I always take a stick just in case, but by the time I reached the château, the tracks of wild boar were so fresh they were making me nervous.

I turned for home as the cranes were passing overhead, in their noisy, undisciplined formations. The wind was fierce up there, the skeins dissolving and the birds circling in directionless flocks. Tired and hungry, none wanted to take the leader’s place. In bird world, that’s the hardest, least enviable place of all.

Spring flowers

It’s spring flower time. Photos taken over the last fortnight.

The blackthorn was the first to blossom.

The daffodils have been in flower for a couple of weeks now.

and the celandine

This monumental stack of blue flower isn’t ceanothus but rosemary.

The shade beneath the hedges is full of violets

and the meadow is an ocean of deep blue muscari

Spring fire

A spring poem for dverse, rather loosely based on this picture.

Beneath the sun,

the silver moon,

daffodils sweep the crumbling loam

and leaf mould dark.

Buds burst and blossom falls,

blown in gusty gales,

and hares, ear-twitching

leap the meadow grass

in praise of some dark king,

some primal urge

that paints the walls of spring

with godless fire.