Category Archives: nature

That sweet monotony.

love, nature, quotes, , , ,

“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?”

-George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

Henri Baptiste Lebasque, Le Repos sous les arbres

The earth’s heart and mine.

nature, poetry, trees, weather, , , , ,

This week I discovered Longfellow’s poem, “The Poet’s Calendar,” and I liked it so much I decided to memorize it, starting with the April section. Just before dusk today, as I was ambling along the creek path, I worked on those several lines, which are so musical, within a few minutes the words had flowed right into my heart. Two sorts of hearts are featured in the poem.

April in these parts started out pretty cold, but is beginning to warm up. We had several surprise showers after it seemed that rain had gone for good — of course not forever, though our dry California summers sometimes feel like “forever,” while we wait and hope for precipitation again in the fall. One of those showers was half-frozen slush that splatted on my car’s windshield for a few minutes.

Storksbill or Cranesbill – don’t remember which…

It’s easier to fit in a good walk, now that the clocks have been changed and there is more evening to work with. The live oaks along my path are sprouting new growth, and climbing roses that escaped their back yards bloom again on the chain link fence.

APRIL

I open wide the portals of the Spring
…..To welcome the procession of the flowers,
With their gay banners, and the birds that sing
…..Their song of songs from their aerial towers.
I soften with my sunshine and my rain
…..The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide
Into the hearts of men, and with the Hours
…..Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from “The Poet’s Calendar”

I was wordless in the singing world.

nature, poetry, work,

It is never my lot to “trifle around with a poem” the way Mary very profitably does, but I know about the thrill of getting unstuck and running (after a fashion) out the door. Just wandering in the garden often changes my mood drastically.  Rain is falling here at this moment, and watering my being.

WORK, SOMETIMES

I was sad all day, and why not. There I was, books piled
on both sides of the table, paper stacked up, words
falling off my tongue.

The robins had been a long time singing, and now it
was beginning to rain.

What are we sure of? Happiness isn’t a town on a map,
or an early arrival, or a job well done, but good work
ongoing.  Which is not likely to be the trifling around
with a poem.

Then it began raining hard, and the flowers in the yard
were full of lively fragrance.

You have had days like this, no doubt. And wasn’t it
wonderful, finally, to leave the room? Ah, what a
moment!

As for myself, I swung the door open. And there was
the wordless, singing world. And I ran for my life.

-Mary Oliver

Older photo, from a little later in spring.