spring – Page 16 – don't confuse the narrator

spring poetry

This week I seem to have missed both the first day of spring and World Poetry Day. I suppose that is as good an excuse as any to post a poem started back in February. It was inspired by a walk in what is said to be a fragment of the old Forest of Arden, a few miles up the road from the scene in the picture.

The poem still isn’t where I want it to be, but I think at least some of it is salvageable.
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stars and stats

The poetry course that I’m taking started with a discussion of sand and stars. More precisely, with the statement that there are ten times as many stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth. (If you’re interested, here’s the maths that backs up the estimate.) I don’t think we mentioned, though, that there are more atoms in a single grain of sand than there are stars in the universe.

Either way, macrocosmos or microcosmos, a number that big is hard to comprehend, and the human brain tends to look for simplifications and ideas closer to home.

I’ve just been out in the garden and, unlikely as it seems, I suppose I’ll just have to assume there are more stars in the universe than there are blossoms on the plum tree.

multitasking

I seem to have as many things on my “to do” list as the neighbour’s azalea has flowers at the moment. Sadly, none of my projects are likely to be so attractive when completed.

clichés and home-comings

I’m currently taking a poetry class where many of the students are from overseas. They know England from their reading – many have studied English Literature – but this is their first personal experience.

Knowing the country and its culture as well as they do, it must feel like a sort of home-coming. It certainly provokes such delightful situations as when one asked about the flowers on the secretary’s desk: “Are those daffodils? Like Wordsworth’s daffodils?”
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