Summer’s Beautiful Lease

Shakespeare felt that the British summer was never long enough:

“…summer’s lease hath all too short a date”

But however long or short it feels, I still think England in the summer is as beautiful as anywhere else on the planet.

Butterflies, too, have a rather short lifespan, but, like us in the summer, they really make the most of all sunny days, and on a recent visit to Brown Clee, the highest point in Shropshire, I came across this beautiful comma butterfly below.

The colours are so vivid – the deep orange contrasting so powerfully with black, reminiscent of the colour scheme of tigers! Looking closely, thought, and you can also see small patches of yellow. This beautiful creature makes the thistle look very drab!

Thomas Gainsborough painted this beautiful painting of his children chasing a butterfly:

The butterfly stays just out of reach on the left-hand side.

Just like perfect summer days – and childhood.

But each has such a beautiful lease!

The Significance of Silence

In the settling silence

Even the swaying of a stalk of grass

Seems to have such significance.

A recent walk up Brown Clee Hill, the highest point in Shropshire, took me to this view, and a silence so complete that the buzzing of insects was the only background sound.

In that settling silence, even the swaying of these stalks of grass seemed to have such significance.

Looking east from Brown Clee Hill, Shropshire, July 2022

Change Your Perspective!

If you are determined, you can find unusual perspectives on what has become familiar territory.

A bird might be lurking, camouflaged in the undergrowth, detectable only by a slight movement or sound as it hops along…

Mistle Thrush

Or a butterfly may be balancing on a single blade of grass…

Gatekeeper butterfly

Even something as ordinary as a thistle can appear quite majestic if it has the tenacity to stand up tall in a wilderness of grasses…

…and looking closer, what’s happening on the plant itself?

I was struck by the contrast of trees living, and dead, co-existing peacefully…

…and with bark that contains eyes – or are they mouths – or faces?

Even the turbulence of water can produce fascinating shapes…

Otherwise conspicuous creatures disappear amongst the long grass…

…whilst between the treetops a hilltop soars…

…and a few cows watch you curiously as you return to where you started.

Where was I? It was Attingham Park, a National Trust property in the West Midlands, just outside of Shrewsbury, UK.

Maybe you can try a change of perspective the next time you visit a familiar place, to keep life good?

A Glory of Swans

In July, I was walking by the River Severn in Shropshire and encountered a group of beautiful swans, as photographed below. They were a glorious sight and I tried to capture the moment in this poem:

~

A glory of swans

On the River Severn

As if heaven

Could be found here

In this place

On earth

As if this moment

Was pre-ordained

From before

All birth.

Here and now

On the River Severn.

~

The Beauty of Close Encounters with the Long Mynd Ponies

I was privileged to find myself within a few metres of these beautiful animals today, 1st June 2022.

The intimacy of the mother and foal was so moving.

On my return, the foal had decided to have a nap in the warm June sunshine.

And then a wonderful comical moment as first the father rolled about, then his foal copied him!

The wonderful things about the Long Mynd in Shropshire is that you never know when you are going to have your next close encounter. On my drive home, I came across another family group, this time with an even younger foal.

The beauty of close encounters with Long Mynd ponies!

Long Mynd Peace

This afternoon

The buzzard soars

Beautifully

And soon

There are more

Larks and pipits

Than I can tell

Their song

Reassures me

That nothing is wrong

Here

All is well

Such gentle release

And I know

For some passing moments

Blessed passing peace.

All photos from the Long Mynd, Shropshire, May 2022

Trembling of the Steady Air

I have always loved to watch kestrels and their amazing ability to hover in the air. On a recent visit to Bettisford Moss, a visiting kestrel was a highlight, and this poem I wrote was inspired by another poem about a kestrel by Gerard Manley Hopkins, called ‘The Windhover’, which you can read here.

~

I caught that day

In his hovering over

~

Of the stillness lake

And my heart stirred

~

Simply for that bird

In flight

~

As if suddenly

I had joined

~

His light

Motion and unceasing

~

Trembling of the steady air

All captured

~

In moments

Of enraptured stare.

~

Bettisford Moss itself has a bleak beauty, with the occasional shrub and pond adding some variety to the landscape:

I was only able to capture a rather distant of that day’s kestrel:

“Experiment in Green”

How do you describe the outburst of greens, yellows, blues and other colours in the spring?

Mary Oliver said this:

“The vivacity of ‘what was’ is married

to the vitality of ‘what will be’…”

from ‘Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness’ by Mary Oliver

And I’ve come across two beautiful phrases by Emily Dickinson in the last few weeks that also seek to capture the magic of spring:

“…experiment in green”

from ‘A Little Madness in the Spring’ (available to read here)

…and…

“express from God”

from ‘Spring is the Period’ (available to read here)

I hope they have inspired you!

This photograph, simply of a bud on a tree, was taken at Dudmaston, in Shropshire, where the bluebells were out early in April.

It certainly looked like “vitality“, an “experiment in green” and “express from God” to me!