Lighthearted Birds
On my walk towards the sea today, I heard the skylark and the lapwing. The larks song was persistent, and suddenly it flew quite close to me. I think the bird was frolicsome 🙂
All the birds were busy. Buzzards gathered, and rose on thermals while their screams mingled with ravens and crows.
On my way home I even heard the yellow hammer.
March! March! March! They are coming
In troops to the tune of the wind.
Redheaded woodpeckers drumming,
Gold – crested thrushes behind;
Sparrows in brown jackets, hopping
Past every gateway and door;
Finches, with crimson caps, stopping
Just where they stopped before.
March! March! March! They are slipping
Into their places at last. . .
Literature white lily buds, dripping
Under the showers that fall fast;
Buttercups, violets, roses;
Snowdrop and bluebell and pink,
Throng upon throng of sweet posies
Bending the dewdrops to drink.
March! March! March! They will hurry
Forth at the wild bugle sound,
Blossoms and birds in a flurry,
Fluttering all over the ground.
Shake out your flags, birch and willow!
Shake out your red tassels, larch!
Grass blades, up from your earth – pillow.
Hear who is calling you. . . March.
Lucy Larcom, March
The Magical Power of Snow
The hoarse cries of a raven put me in adventure mood. A few kilometres further on, only the creaking of snow under my shoes breaks the silence, This is an amazing day after the blizzard and the light makes my heart sing.
I’m grateful for being alive.
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the withered air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, and housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
The Snow-Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Wilderness
I found it! The quote by John Muir. I read it somewhere and lost it again but the essence remained in my heart:
I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
John Muir
The Unnamed Lake by Frederick George Scott creates a huge longing for big nature but as you can see I found my own unnamed lake:
…Dark clouds that intercept the sun
Go there in Spring to weep,
And there, when Autumn days are done,
White mists lie down to sleep.
Sunrise and sunset crown with gold
The peaks of ageless stone,
Where winds have thundered from of old
And storms have set their throne.
No echoes of the world afar
Disturb it night or day,
The sun and shadow, moon and star
Pass and repass for aye…
Fairy Dust is Essential
The sun breaks through the clouds, and illuminates the bright golden birch trees.
Still, the impression is diffused. As if the colours are more important than the contours.
Has nature decided that today’s colours are the most important issue?
The blueberry rice is empty, but a few hidden blackberries are full of sweetness and memories of the summer’s bounteous harvest of luscious berries.
This place is fairy land. There is no doubt.
Fairy Dust is essential.
Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry,
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
by William Shakespeare
If You Have Ever Gone To The Woods With Me…
How I Go to the Woods, by Mary Oliver
Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they
are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging
the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of
a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses
singing.If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
This morning I watched the deer
with beautiful lips touching the tips
of the cranberries, setting their hooves down
in the dampness carelessly, isn’t it after all
the carpet of their house, their home, whose roof
is the sky?
Why, then, was I suddenly miserable?
Well, this is nothing much.
This is the heaviness of the body watching the swallows
gliding just under that roof.
This is the wish that the deer would not lift their heads
and leap away, leaving me there alone.
This is the wish to touch their faces, their brown wrists –
to sing some sparking poem into
the folds of their ears.then walk with them,
over the hills
and over the hills
and into the impossible trees.This Morning I Watched the Deer, by Mary Oliver
There is an art to wandering
Sometimes I have a heartfelt joy to wander aimlessly.
I didn’t plan this walk. A walk among hawthorns and deers towards the coast of Øresund.
All my worries are left and the only thing that counts is the present moment.
Our brain needs a break so our spirit can live.
There is an art to wandering. If I have a destination, a plan – an objective – I’ve lost the ability to find serendipity. I’ve become too focused, too single-minded. I am on a quest, not a ramble. I search for the Holy Grail of particularity, and miss the chalice freely offered, filled full to overflowing.
by Cathy Johnson, On Becoming Lost
The Summer Days
Then followed that beautiful season… Summer….
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Human beings are made up mostly of water, in roughly the same percentage as water is to the surface of the earth. Our tissues and membranes, our brains and hearts, our sweat and tears—all reflect the same recipe for life, in which efficient use is made of those ingredients available on the surface of the earth.
We are 23 percent carbon, 2.6 percent nitrogen, 1.4 percent calcium, 1.1 percent phosphorous, with tiny amounts of roughly three dozen other elements.
But above all we are oxygen (61 percent) and hydrogen (10 percent), fused together in the unique molecular combination known as water, which makes up 71 percent of the human body.Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
