Natural Choreography

My trip to the nature reserve at Minsmere which I wrote about yesterday I now realise was curtailed too early. I had wondered why so many people were arriving at the RSPB reserve so late in the day. The clear evening skies were the perfect backdrop to see the glorious balletic murmurations of thousands of starlings above the reed beds.

[Photo: woodlandtrust.org]

It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of starlings in these groups as they perform these enigmatic shows.

 

Feather pillows in the sky

Sink and sway and undulate

Display of beauty to the eye

Swoop and gracefully gyrate

What instinct produces such a skill

That gives we onlookers such a thrill?

Sun

It took its time getting here

and the fear was that it would be mid year

and still we’d have no sun – just rain –

with only grey clouds for weeks.

Just grey clouds that came again

and again – with rain. A saturation

of precipitation. A situation of steady

frustration.

But now the sun has decided to show

itself to try to dry the sodden soil.

The weeds survived and thrived, of course.

First Blooms

As the frosty days recede, the seeds of Spring

are seen in shoots. And around the roots

of trees the daffodils rejoice.

If these blooms all had a voice, the chorus

would carry for miles across the countryside.

Heralds of an awakening season.

Crocuses and snowdrops give the reason

for hope of more to come, as warm days

bring out the later flowers.

The growing power of sunlight caresses

the earth, and farmland flourishes

in vivid verdant swathes.

Persistent Precipitation

Persistent Precipitation

And still it came – the rain!

More and more to saturate the satiated soil

Of a dishevelled garden, mired in mud.

The water would drain away if it could,

But now lies in ponds

Among the fronds

And flooded roots

Where pale green shoots

Of bulbs appear,

Fooled in thinking Spring is near,

And seem to drown,

As more incessant rain comes down.

I look through the soaking window pain

And think of summer months again,

When in the swelter of an August day,

Perversely we all start to pray

For rain!

© Wally Smith 2024

Dressing Up

I have been a member of an amateur dramatics group for a number of years now. A log time ago I put myself on a stage and before an audience, but nothing of the sort in the intervening twenty odd years. That was until my retirement when I discovered a group in the area I moved to several years ago. Since then I have appeared in productions as varied as Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, Moliere and Pantomime (I was the dame!). I have tried to define what it is about taking part in such activities that is the attraction, because inevitably on the opening night nervous tension takes over, which it is popularly thought is a good thing. Learning lines is always stressful, especially at my age, and also if the part is of substantial size. Despite this, I have always gone back for more. Is it the dressing up in different costumes, the excitement of a first night or the applause from the audience that is the lure? More than this, I believe it is the camaraderie and teamwork of everyone taking part, be it on stage or behind the scenes.

The current seasonal offering is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, hence the picture.

The audience applause – a cause

to heave a sigh and wonder why

there was all the fuss about the learning

of lines. There were times when I wished

I’d never started. But being downhearted has

no part in a production, unless of course,

(it goes without saying)

that that is the part you are actually playing.

The Horkey

This weekend I enjoyed my first Horkey, which is a name denoting the celebrations that end the harvest festivals, and is particularly attributed to East Anglia. It consists of a festival of folk music, poetry, songs and stories. As a member of the Suffolk Poetry Society, I was invited to read a poem about Autumn or something related to that time of year. I was intrigued by the sight of so many spiders’ webs decorating shrubs, trees, lamps and gateposts in the dew-laden air at this time of year and wrote the following:

Web Designer

Fragility shudders in morning mist,

Where a dew-draped web hangs

On silken threads.

How can such a trap seem so exquisite?

Intricacy of design with a less benign intention.

An invention of nature.

The architect of this lace-like span

Waits and waits, as dew dissolves

And sweet sunlight lures

The unsuspecting prey.

Mahonia

The very late and very warm weather has now gone and Autumn has established itself with cooler days and much wetter weather.

The mahonia bush in the garden very much stands out in these greyer days.

Mahonia (An acrostic )

Mistress of autumn foliage,

A collage of yellow spikes and green,

Holding forth in rain-soaked raiment:

Oh, what a brilliant scene!

Nature’s bold expression,

In this season’s time of dying,

A confirmation of succession.

Torpidity

What breeze there is has a languid feel

and merely ushers hot air amongst

the shrubs and bushes. I’ve no doubt

a drought will follow soon.

Unauthorised use of hosepipes

will be deemed treasonable,

despite the unseasonable weather.

Evaporation

Perspiration

Indignation

Resignation

Precipitation (please!)

Late Sunshine

The season shifts and the mists

Move light in the morning air,

Where harvest spiders weave

And leave webs drip-filled with dew.

The day grows into a belated heat

That summer never saw.

Ripening fruits are in awe

Of the swelling warmth.

Records record it’s the hottest,

Where once was the wettest there’d been.

Yet I still fret, and am willing to bet

My tomatoes will all remain green.

April

A crisp morning mist belies the April days

and plays hide and seek with the sun.

The pink of cherry blossom goes great with grey

but not with skies that hold such leaden looks.

There seems no reason why this season

should be so taciturn, except the highs and lows

of weather charts dance around in a false

waltz, unseasonal and unreasonable.

It may be that May will pave the way

for better days and we shall be welcomed

with a heat haze… or a heatwave.

Shortie No. 3 – Portal

There are many parts of Britain which have ancient historical mysteries. Some of these are burial mounds or the ruins of Bronze Age settlements. Stone circles, most notably Stonehenge, offer puzzles as to the origins and purpose of such structures with many theories being provided over the years. Churches often contain carvings or inscriptions, the meanings of some remaining unresolved. This fictional story relates to such an artefact.

Portal

Happleby is a small undistinguished village in a remote part of Lincolnshire. So remote is it and devoid of anything of particular interest that it failed even to be recorded on the pages of 100 Places Not Worth Visiting in Britain (Pub: Harper & Dodds 1992). To be fair, it does have an Anglican church (St Cedd’s, known by locals as Sid’s), a pub – The Anserine Gate, and a small Post Office, which has now reopened for business after the proprietor was exonerated of all charges of embezzlement.

  Why this location was ever considered as a suitable place for a settlement remains unclear. The church, it is said, has origins that pre-date Norman times, and the theory is that the site had a particular significance for it to be established there: again, none of the current residents have any information as to why this theory exists.  The only clue lies in the door.  Not the main door of the church, but an inner one which affords access to nothing at all. Given that the church itself has probably been rebuilt several times in the last fifteen hundred years, the door is part of what was once a previous edifice. Why this survived above all other materials, has left various investigations unresolved.

  A BBC recording exists of a Radio 4 programme from 1982 in which a Professor Giles Ploughieum (pronounced Plum) of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities Department of Durham Museum gave his observations of the mysterious door.

  ‘The wood, at first inspection, appears to be English Oak, although granular striations do not compare with any others of probable similar age, or even confirm that it is a type of oak. Indeed, it has been impossible to define precisely what type of wood this is, which is a deeply concerning conundrum. One dendrochronological hypothesis, to which I myself do not subscribe, is that the wood comes from a tree that…well…no longer exists. A few years ago, trials were carried out to carbon date the material, and this indicated that it was more than five thousand years old. This would make it considerably older than the door in Westminster Abbey which is considered the oldest in the country.’

  Clearly the audience figures for Radio 4 programmes of 1980s, and broadcast just before the farming programme at 5 a.m., were such that no reactions to this pronouncement by the learned professor were forthcoming.

  It was a recent study of the door in 2014 that raised further questions. The metal hinges, which had been assumed to be made of iron, were in fact an alloy of aluminium, not dissimilar to that used on spacecraft.  Given that aluminium was first commercially produced in the mid1800s, the enigma of the origins of the door remains. However, visitors to Happleby are more intrigued as to why the pub is called The Anserine Gate. There are some who believe that there is a connection between the ‘gate’ and the door in the church. The simple explanation, however, is that ‘gate’ is a misspelling of the word ‘gait’ and refers to the large numbers of geese that used to thrive and walk around the area.  The door in the church was replaced with a facsimile in 2015 and the original is now kept in a secret government research laboratory.

© Wally Smith 2023