Sunday 3 January 2016

January Weather

                                                                    Early snowdrops

Dear Reader,

I am really pleased to be writing my blog again, and I do hope you will enjoy some of the poems and musings I will write this year.   Thank you too for reading the blog - it is lovely for me to know that you do.

I hope you had a good and restful Christmas holiday and feel refreshed at the start of the New Year.  But the one creature that didn't have a good Christmas holiday was, I understand, the Tawny Owl.  The mice that he likes eating and other suitable prey have been in short supply this winter which, as you know, was mild and wet, and finding a mate has been difficult for him too.  The number of tawny owls has fallen in the last 25 years and, where hitherto they had been able to find  nesting places, the nesting places have now disappeared.  So let us hope they have a more successful life in 2016, perhaps with a bit of timely help from charitable local councils, like those which did the dormice such a good turn quite recently (see my blog for "Farm Portrait" on 29.11.15).
                                                           


                                                                                     *


January Weather

We know from recorded history,
that in St. Merryn
a hundred years ago,
there blew great winds
and the sea was smoking white.

We know it was warm in Kent,
where the thrushes thought spring
had come, and piped away.
And primroses were a yellow carpet
in North Norfolk,
or so the parson wrote.

We know of cutting winds in Hampshire,
of icicles and frost, and
in Skiddaw on a mild day,
a brown spotted butterfly was seen.
We know that hungry church mice
ate Bible markers,
hungry people died of cold.

And we know that this dark winter month
had days of snow, that wild clouds
gathered in the sky unleashing icy rain,
churning up the plough.

And yet, again, we also know
the sun shone in that distant year,
it was warm enough to push through
early snowdrops, and the Holy Thorn.
Light was glimpsed, here and there,
all life struggled for its moments.
                                                                             *


A Very Happy New Year
and very best wishes,  Patricia


2 comments:

  1. Thank you Patricia for this poem - I love the images of light and warmth not being overcome by the harshness of the season.

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  2. Trishpot—this is wonderful! So evocative. I am going to show it to Bud. I think he will particularly appreciate it.

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