Words and Pictures

Just a  pic taken outside first thing this morning and a poem by the Welsh Poet Laureate Gillian Clarke (one of my favourite poets). This poem is from her latest collection 'Ice'.








Ode to Winter 


We hoard light, hunkered in holt and burrow,
in cave, cwtsh, den, earth, hut, lair.
Sun blinks.  Trees take down their hair.
Dusk wipes horizons, seeps into the room,
the last flame of geranium in the gloom.

In the shortening day, bring in the late flowers
to crisp in a vase, beech to break into leaf,
a branch of lark.  Take winter by the throat.
Feed the common birds, tits and finches,
the spotted woodpecker in his opera coat.

Let’s learn to love the icy winter moon,
or moonless dark and winter constellations,
Jupiter’s glow, a slow, incoming plane,
neighbourly windows,someone’s flickering screen,
a lamp-lit page, drawn curtains.

Let us praise intimacy, talk and books,
music and silence, wind and rain,
the beautiful bones of trees, taste of cold air,
darkening fields, the glittering city,
that winter longing, hiraeth, something like prayer.

Under the stilled heartbeat of trees,
wind-snapped branches, mulch and root,
a million bluebell bulbs lie low
ready to flare in lengthening light,
after the dark, the frozen earth, the snow.

Out there, fox and buzzard, kite and crow
are clearing the ground for the myth.
On the darkest day bring in the tree,
cool and pungent as forest.  Turn up the music.
Pour us a glass.  Dress the house in pagan finery.

Gillian Clarke

Our River 

 

 

More pics on my photo blog.