11th Day, blue skies

-
Dear Monty,


Blue skies

How death eats us up
These fruitful minds which outstrip our bodies.
We think we fly above it
Yet it stalks us like a hunter in the shadows.

Give me sparrows in the hedge
Give me the plaintive Robin
And angled light through strap-like leaves.
Give me loving kindness as long as I can give it in return.
There is the rub.
Kindness in the face of knowledge.
Stepping down - giving way is so hard to do.

We are given so much that is unmerited.

Flowers give hoverflies nectar and pollen for their pad-like mouths
The flowers on the duvet cover hanging on the line give me sustenance.
A pattern against the hedge - over the throne I never sit on.

Give me a happy hound with wagging tail
Chickens pecking at this year's grapes
The last flush of red foliage
Dappled and appled.

Autumn stalks in and brings mellow melancholy to my heart
Oh I wish I was dead to my passions
Or at least sleeping peacefully.



Paul

Comments

  1. Unknown12 September 2016 at 10:30

    Lovely :)
    But you must embrace your passions. There is so much beauty in melancholy.... John Barry has a couple of personal CD's of music (not soundtracks). Hauntingly beautiful and very melancholic. Just lovely.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul Steer12 September 2016 at 11:20

      The trouble with embracing passion is it can cause harm to others when it is not their passion too. Perhaps I am just the coward I always suspected I was ? !

      Delete
  2. James Golden12 September 2016 at 17:03

    Love the poem, Paul. The last two lines throw me. I want to disagree, though I suppose there's no need me to agree or not. It's your poem.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pity the cabbage white

-
Image
Dear Monty, Having seen you protect your newly planted cabbages from cabbage white butterflies - it made me realise that I haven't seen many this year. Despite warmth yesterday - a brief interlude with blue sky and a light wind there was a dearth of butterflies in the coal tip garden. There were honey bees, bumble bees, wasps, hover flies, a gangly legged wasp, one hedge brown, one speckled wood and a common blue - that is all. Oh and a frog sheltering in the shady hosta and a silent peregrine falcon swooping overhead. What has happened to all the insects ? What has happened to all the aphids this year ? Is it just me that is missing them ? I have seen no ladybirds or ladybird larvae - because there have been so few aphids - was it the birds that have snaffled them ? I worry about the lack of insect numbers. We walked through a wild meadow full of meadow cranesbill and meadowsweet with the purple haze of knapweed in the grasses and yet there were one or two meadow br...
Read more

Letter to Monty Don 48

-
Image
Dear Monty, I know that despite these rambles being addressed to you, they never reach your eyes or heart, but this question is most certainly directed to you : Can nature be ugly ? I am pondering this question sitting in my cupboard of a 'studio' where I am putting the finishing touches to paintings of  British native orchids, pollinators and butterflies for an exhibition next weekend. Now I believe that you understand perfectly well the response you may get when you make statements on GW - including the one about spent buddleja flowers being 'ugly'. I too have always deadheaded my buddleja for the same reason, and as you said to promote new flower spikes. But this ugliness is an intrinsic part of nature - it sets seed to create the next generation, the flowers last but for a few days. Is this ugliness a kind of acknowledgement of the frailty of 'beauty' .... and the cutting off and tidying away a kind of denial ? ( Perhaps I think too much.) I ...
Read more

Monty, where does the road take us ?

-
Image
Monty, I see you have returned to France. Your film reminded me of my visits to Paris as an art student between 1981-83. It is a city that cannot fail to make an impression with its wide open streets, avenues of trees, the river and public gardens. I particularly remember Versailles with its long canal. At that time I was not aware of having a particular interest in gardens, but the gardens at Versailles were astonishing. I saw them in early morning light, when there were not that many people there. I also remember being intrigued by the garden at the Musee Rodin. Strangely for an art student, it was not the sculpture that caught my attention but the garden with pyramid shaped topiary. Perhaps what I was responding to was the sense of order, balance and harmony. It almost feels as though I was meant to visit, and that the encounters I had which were sensually intense, were pre-ordained. There is one incident, which has great significance only to me perhaps, but which was of ...
Read more