nature – Page 37 – don't confuse the narrator

spring lamb

Wriggle-tailed and spindle-legged:
a lop-eared lamb, too young to know
which hoof moves next. He chooses
all four simultaneously.

(notes for a poem)

‘when daffodils begin to peer’

In fact, of course, the daffodils in the garden were ‘beginning to peer’ a month ago, but the ones in the photo are a far more local species.

From looking around the web, I think I’ve identified them as narcissus pallidulus.

What isn’t clear from the photo is just how tiny they are.

The fact that they are as pale as their name suggests, and that the petals tend to curl right back rather than standing out, star-like, around the ‘trumpet’ – which is probably no bigger than a single lily-of-the-valley bell – means it’s quite easy to miss them altogether, although they are now about in their thousands in the pine woods along the river bank.

world poetry day

I have been reminded that today is World Poetry Day – “a time to appreciate and support poets and poetry around the world.” Someone even went so far as to wish me a “happy” day, which seemed rather out of place as I’m never very creative when I’m happy.

Ah well, I really should post a poem, I suppose. But not having been very creative recently, it’ll have to be an old one.
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sap rising

Not only rising, but dripping out of the cut ends of the vine branches and leaving a puddle on the porch roof and damp spots on the stones of the patio.

It’s hard to believe that wounds made when pruning three months ago should not have healed over yet, but that seems to be the case.
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fine feathers three

The discussion about el Centro Educativo Los Morales and whether it might be a centre for teaching lost morals made me think of Thomas Hardy’s The Ruined Maid. I’ve always been fond of ‘Melia.

I suspect her “bright feathers three” would have been rather more ostentatious than the ones I’ve found to illustrate the post, but the cats don’t get much chance at anything more colourful round here.

I think the black and white one came from a woodpecker, and, as far as I know, was shed naturally. The blue one is from a rabilargo, whose wing was left on my doorstep, presumably as a comment on the inadequacy of a kibble diet for outdoor cats. And the rather fine spotted quill is one I picked up from a pile of feathers in the olive grove next door. Whether the cats worked as a team to bring down one of the neighbour’s guinea fowls, I don’t know, but I’d have thought it would have been too big a job for one on their own.
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