original poem – Page 67 – don't confuse the narrator

great oaks and giant redwoods

Wildflowers and grasses
dwarf my three-year oak.
The spring breeze whispers:
Patience! Time will tell.

Of course the tree in the picture isn’t the “three-year oak”. (Though I think the little one would be quite a bit taller if it hadn’t been accidentally strimmed a couple of times in its first year!)

The photo is of one of the trees on the neighbouring plot.

They tower over our greenhouse and when the wind blows in autumn, acorns skitter across the flat roof and I am tempted to run like Henny Penny to warn everybody that “the sky is falling!”
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feather brained

The village is running an ornithological photography competition.

mantis close-up of head and antennae. Probably Empusa pennata adult male

Sadly, although many birds visit the garden – blackbirds, hoopoes, azure-tailed magpies, jays, warblers, black caps, treecreepers… – not to mention the herons down by the river and the hawks and eagles who share our airspace, they all have a nasty habit of flying away before I can get my camera out, let alone focus it.

So unless I build a hide in the greenhouse and stalk what I think must be a pair of black redstarts who are nesting there, or set up the step ladder on the verandah and try and peer into the swallows’ neat adobe home, neither of which seem to be recommended courses of action, I don’t think I’ll be entering the competition.

I have, however, had a little more luck taking pictures of this marvellous creature with his spectacular feathered antennae. (Go on: click the photo and check him out close up!)
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pedantry & poetry

"James Anderson becomes only the fourth England player to take 300 Test wickets during the first Test against New Zealand."

Cricket Tests are renowned for how long they last, but the BBC news to the right seems to imply they might go on for weeks: if Anderson was the fourth to take 300 wickets in the first Test, then three others had done so before him.

Just how long does it take for 1200+ wickets to be taken?

Elsewhere on the BBC last week I read their College of Journalism blog post: We all love lists, but are they all journalism?
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spa’ku

We laze in jasmine-scented waters
while stainless steel appliances
fart us into relaxation.

As usual, it’s a fragment rather than a hai’ku. You can read more such pieces here on the blog, or check out my multimedia collection Poems from the Pueblo: haiku and assorted fragments. (The link takes you to the publisher’s video on Vimeo).

writing it slow

Years ago, I wrote a long and rambling free verse poem that started “My mother makes sloe gin”. It was a runner up in a poetry competition, but despite the minor success, I was aware that it was rather flabby; I think I’ve been trying to force it into some kind of form for near on a decade.

That said, I had completely forgotten this version, which I think must have been written some time last year for a sonnet competition and abandoned when it wouldn’t conform to the formal constraints. Since the sloe trees are in full bloom this weekend, it seems a good time to post it:
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