Thought for today:
With all the recent changeable weather, I can't wait for spring to come to both the gardens and allotments instead of merely being a date on our kitchen calendars and teasing one with brief glimpses of what 'should be' instead of 'what is'. As the Sioux warrior chief, Sitting Bull is once said to have remarked,'Behold, my friends, the spring has come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love.'
While my health has been as stable as it possibly could have been over the past six months, I have only been spared further pneumonia, death threatening bugs and emergency hospital admissions and treatment because I have mostly stayed at home inside, keeping warm for most of this period and greatly restricted my contact with human viruses (that essentially means avoiding human contact for the most part). Our allotment offers me release from this house prison that contains my old body nine months of each good year, and spring just won't allow me to stay in the house any longer than needs must. I can't wait to get out and breathe the air deeply again and sing with the birds and the plants in our allotment.
I usually write two books a year, health permitting, and they are written and published during the cold winter months. When spring arrives, I put down my pen and do not take it up again until autumn has come and gone.
Spring brings perpetual astonishment to me and with its promised coming. I am calm again. Nature paints spring a colourful glow and make me forget that anything as cold and harsh as winter ever existed. It carries the hope of rebirth and new life in its ground, the love of life sleeps in its cool breeze and hope abounds when the sweet music of the birds fills the air and blades of moorland grass beneath lovers lying are crushed in an amorous embrace.
The Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, Rainer Maria Rilke who wrote in the late 19th and early 20th century was recognised as one of the most lyrically intense German poets. He wrote the words, 'The spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems'. I include below one of the spring poems that I wrote to celebrate my wish to see spring return:
'If only one wish was granted to me': Copyright: William Forde
"If only one wish was granted to me,
to save spring meadows for all to see
would be my wish, my heart's desire
to see spectacular poppy fields fire
icy hearts, stagnant thoughts and sorry souls
back into life, where only Nature holds
within its ground, eternity.'
William Forde: March 18th, 2018.