Be like the flower, turn your face to the sun.
— Kahlil Gibran
Beyond the window the rain is falling and the birds make of the dusk their own tiny pageantry of song. Everything that is wild is damp and sighing.
Together the pitter-patter of the rain and the dulcet birdsong weave the somnambulant music of the Earth around my ears, and in a single moment it is as though nothing else exists beyond this perfect circle of time and place and feeling all entwined .
I lift my eyes and note a sopping wet mist descending over the hills that crest and fall against the line where sky meets Earth; the vast expanse overhead rendered in a bruising shade of grey. All is soft and heavy with pensive clouds, promising many hours of rain throughout the lilac hours of the night.
We have lost many of our long and ambling evenings to these skies of late, the stretching light of June hiding behind clouds of stone. Without the lingering sunlight the nodding flowers often denounce the hour and take early leave, closing their fine and fragrant faces to the day. I too draw away from the garden and the bridleways earlier than I would like, without a sun to turn my face towards, seeking shelter from a heavy descent of tears cried down from the brooding sky who appears to have much to lament.
Perhaps it would be easy to forget that the Summer Solstice is only days away, were it not for the damp posy picked in the falling rain and placed in a pitcher on the sideboard: ox-eye daisies, pretty purple salvia, the blushing wild grass holcus lanatus, and the dainty seed heads of ribbed plantain and common sorrel. All jostle together, severed stems knocking knees, wordlessly announcing our place in the season’s wheel; their simple presence crying out “lo! Summer is here!”
The following night the rains finally clear from the sky. A pale yellow evening pulls me outside and carries me down the woodland path, where slanting light falling through the heavy mantle of the trees draws a sweetness from my step and lifts the corners of my mouth to a smile. I linger under ash and oak and hazel, counting blessings by the twittering stream and laughing at the squirrels who dive recklessly overhead. Spring was wild and unbridled and full of surprises; now comes Summer, with an embrace as sweet and yielding as the nectar of her flowers.
spring dispatch | 05 | 19.06.2024 | We linger on the dividing line between two seasons, my pen hesitating between Spring and Summer. I am, as ever, a little sad to say farewell to the springtime, for it is the season that I love most dearly. With the wet and unseasonably cold weather, the garden has been moving a little slowly. Seedlings do not appear to relish being planted out, and sulk grumpily away in the loam; at least the weather keeps the wildness somewhat at bay in my beds and borders, and relieves me of much of the work of weeding. Indeed, were it not for the honeysuckle, the roses, the strawberries, and the elderflower, I could almost be tricked into thinking we were a month or more behind in the calendar. Little matter, because all is still wonderful and miraculous even when the land is damp and chilled, and windows of sunshine and warmth are certainly becoming more and more frequent of late. I am simply happy in the knowledge that very soon I shall not be able to move for the many flower friends who are to join in the circle of the season. I have raised hundreds from seed this year, and I place my faith in their fragrance, and in the wide blue skies and delicate sunlight under which they - and we - will surely dance in the coming months.
a birdwatcher’s inventory —
A wren builds a nest in the drainpipe. He is tiny, and has my heart on a string.
I see kestrel, sparrow hawk, and red kite above the trees. Kestrel makes a swoop for a baby blue tit feeding at the table, but misses. I am happy for the baby, but am moved by the kestrel’s plight, who has a second brood of chicks to feed in the nest in the paddock.
I hear curlew and cuckoo, though I do not see them.
I have not heard the owls for a long time, and wonder why.
The garden is visited throughout the day by all the usual friends: robin, blue tit, great tit, coal tit, nuthatch, chaffinch, blackbird, magpie, wood pigeon. A bullfinch is an occasional treat to behold, with his blushing pink breast and little black cap.
All birds have their babies in tow, and so the garden has the atmosphere of a nursery of sorts, with a near-continuous frenzy of little ones flitting about. Clumsy and boisterous and nervous in their measure, they are green to the ways of the feeding table, lacking the agility and etiquette of the adult birds.
The family of woodpeckers (great spotted) from the stand of oak trees are doing well, and we often see two or three feeding at one time; the babies already strikingly magnificent like their parents, with their flashes of vermillion red.
Crows wake me up each morning without fail. I am happy for it, and can think of no better alarm than their riotous cawing emptying into my bedroom as the early light peels in.
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