Beneath the green
tangled luxuriance
of summer growth,
snowdrops
are sleeping.
Category: Nature
Garden newsflash….baby slow worms
As you may know if you’ve been reading this blog recently, there is news in the garden too. And usually it’s more interesting than the actual news.
Today’s breaking garden news, baby slow worms, curled like bootlaces under some old roof tiles. So small! I see adult slow worms in the garden occasionally, but never baby ones.
Here is one, it’s not a great photo, I was tempted to poke it so it unfurled, but the slow worm would not have liked that, so I didn’t!
Seasons of silence
Recently the owls have been
silent,
busy,
hungry beaks to feed.
Soon the evening air
will resonate
with their cries.
We all have seasons
of silence,
seasons of song.
Welsh poppy
A ray of sun
in a dark corner
lights a poppy
in an explosion
of colour
May
May rushes on,
a juggernaut of growth,
an expansion into summer fullness.
May says
Pay attention to every moment
or I will slip through your fingers.
Spring in the garden
I plant seeds and tidy the greenhouse
as three slow worms bask peacefully
in the sun.
I love slow worms, and it makes me so happy to know that I share my garden with them. They look like little copper coloured snakes, but are actually legless lizards. One lives in the raspberry bed, one in a hole in the patio and one in the wall near the woodshed. There are probably more, I just haven’t spotted them yet.
Rough edges
My garden,
like much of my life,
a little scruffy,
a little rough around the edges,
beautiful to my eyes
but perhaps not everyone’s
cup of tea.
Today I watched
a queen red-tailed bumblebee
dusted in golden pollen
feasting on a dandelion,
mother of next summer’s bees
sustained by my laziness,
my dislike of weeding.
Perfection may ensnare us
but it is a sterile thing,
there is treasure
to be found
in the wild,
in the untamed,
at the rough edges of life.
An encounter
I walked, insignificant beneath
giant eucalyptus,
peeling bark hanging in strings,
revealing subtle pinks,
oranges, greys.
Through tree fern gullys, tracery of
fronds filtering the sun,
shady green, dappled.
And everywhere, birds flitted,
colourful, exotic to my eyes.
The parched fallen gum leaves
crackled beneath my feet.
I was almost, but not quite, lost,
weary after hours of walking,
but now heading in the direction
of home.
My head was full of colours and sounds,
the smell of eucalyptus
welcome in my nostrils.
And then, a familiar call,
a stirring in the trees ahead,
the sense of being watched
a glimpse of movement,
and suddenly I was surrounded
by black cockatoos.
I stopped in wonder,
in awe.
I must have spent an hour
watching, camera clicking
while they chatted and pecked
and clambered around the branches.
They knew I was there.
They didn’t care.
I was the one who was
blessed by our meeting.
Spring equinox
The song thrush
shouts his delight
at the lengthening days.
Everyday contentment
A hailstorm engulfed the woods.
I walked, partially sheltered by
the bare branches,
cocooned, warm in my coat as
the hailstones drummed on my head.
It passed over, the last balls of ice
bounced off my hair as
I put my hood down.
I emerged into sunshine,
a cool fresh breeze,
and contentment.
You can always find contentment if you walk far enough!
Life in the Fresh Air 