from BARDO

The stars are in our belly; the Milky Way our umbilicus.

Is it a consolation that the stuff of which we’re made

is star-stuff too?


– That wherever you go you can never fully disappear –

dispersal only: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen.


Tree, rain, coal, glow-worm, horse, gnat, rock.


Roselle Angwin

Tuesday 13 January 2015

the small gifts of now


  •  


  • seven different species of bird at the feeders including a nuthatch and a spotted woodpecker, and a nice little ecosystem going on with the shy high-stepping pheasant, the ground-feeding small birds, the wood pigeon and two squirrels cleaning up the mess underneath, deliberately thrown out of the feeder by the fussy ones
  • the showers, cold though they are – they bring such lightshifts behind them
  • a bank of white periwinkles just outside the French door behind me
  • the first snowdrop
  • red flowers on the japonica
  • a few dozen bulbs coming through – all the more wonderful because I'd forgotten I'd planted them
  • the laughter of a green woodpecker – 'yaffingale' – somewhere off in the woods
  • feeling good in my body (though also on more subtle levels) because of starting the week yesterday with a morning of dance
  • and because of having spent a couple of lovely hours lightly pruning the apple trees with TM on Sunday (must be getting old – that was so satisfying, and a decade or two ago I'd have thought it the height of bourgeois-ness)
  • the privilege of looking after apple trees
  • the smell of one of our huge orange squashes roasting (gardeners: the big orange ones are rouge vif d'etampes, grown from seed I saved the previous year; tasty, good keepers; email me if you'd like me to save you a few seeds from the next one!)
  • the lingering feelgoodness of the poetry day with 'my' group on Saturday
  • the lingering smugness of meditating again :-)
  • the quiet, with the restless westerly outside
  • a whole day to write, and a fire to write by 
  • I'm alive, with enough to eat, a lovely place to live, shelter, dear friends and family, and not in a warzone...


No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive