A common man marvels at uncommon things. A wise man marvels at the commonplace. CONFUCIUS

Thursday 19 February 2015

Crocus

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance. 

YOKO ONO


It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart. 

RAINER MARIA RILKE

Today, in England, the snowdrops, crocuses and hellebores are flowering, the daffodils and tulips are pushing up, the quince is budding, the first delicate petals of cherry blossom are shyly testing the air, the first bee flies over the grass and the first beetle skates over the pond . . . 

10 comments:

Ruth said...

Thank you.

am said...

Muchas gracias for Yoko and Rilke and the firsts of spring in England.

George said...

As I noted on FB, a lovely photo that lifts the spirits for those of us dealing with this Arctic front .

Friko said...

Not quite all of that here in the Marches.
Perhaps I’d better go and take a closer look. I would so love it to be true.

Anonymous said...

Who can see the crocus without calling to mind the Bard(ess?) of Bradford?

Spring

To see the yellow daffodils
Drives away all sundry ills,
And upon the lawn the crocus
Peeps out from the grass to poke us.

Harken to the cows that moo
And to the rooks that make ado
Among the treetops (such a flock!
Were they men, they'd run amok!)

And see the stripèd bee that flies
Along the hedge before my eyes!
Nature has woken to a joyful morn!
Who could, for long, remain forlorn?

Margery Clute (1824-76)

The Solitary Walker said...

Ah, Sackerson (Dominic)! I haven't given dear Margery a thought for ages. Those were the days! I have a feeling she'd still be writing the same style of, err, moving poesy if she were writing today.

Hildred said...

Thank you for the words and the beautiful spring photo.

Susan Scheid said...

Echoing Friko and her "not quite," I say, "not at all" here in the Hudson Valley. As a result, it's even more of a joy to know spring is coming on somewhere in the world!

The Solitary Walker said...

Over the next few days it's back to the wind and the rain and the frost. As Branwell Clute (Margery Clute's little-known brother, also a closet poet — well, that's where he wrote) might have said about the spring:

She peeps out once and then she's spent
And what seemed once a horn of plent-
Y now's a broken cornucopia
Unless you're suffering from myopia.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. I always thought that was lines 2-5 of The Waste Land, as deleted by Ezra Pound. :)