Category Archives: Literature

Arts, Literature, Poetry

The lifeless hedgerow?

ENJOYING my usual evening walk, I paused to stand a while

And watch the baby rabbits play – their antics make me smile!

What seemed an empty hedgerow stretched along the winding lane,

But as I stood there silently I had to think again!

First came some busy buzzing bees and they were quite intent

On seeking honeysuckle flowers, drawn by their heady scent.

Then from the ivy popped a wren, a tiny perky thing,

And then landed a blackbird, too, and he began to sing

His own sweet song, full-throated, pure, as he was unaware

That I stood listening to the notes that filled the evening air.

The hawthorn swarmed with small black flies and then a ladybird

And several butterflies arrived – I smiled at how absurd

To think this hedgerow void of life; I’d been completely blind!

It teemed, it buzzed, it was alive with life of every kind!

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Arts, Literature

Set it free in the world

SIR RICHARD MAITLAND, who lived in the 16th century, was an eminent judge who became blind at the age of sixty-five.

Thinking he could no longer practise law, and not yet ready to retire from a productive life, he turned to the study of – of all things – literature.

He then went on to make a name for himself as a poet.

Now, the good judge may have needed someone to write his poems down, and he probably never saw one of them in print, but not being able to see the end result of his endeavours did not stop him adding to the world’s store of beauty.

Nor should it stop us.

Too often people hestitate to help because they can’t see how it will all work out in the end.

Don’t let that concern you. If you have beauty, kindness or even poetry to give, then set it free in the world.

It will take care of itself from there.

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Arts, Books, Literature

The Heart of a Garden

PINNEGAR, in Reginald Arkell’s 1950 novel “Old Herbaceous”, is the gardener at the local big house. A foundling baby, he grows up to find home and family in the garden and its plants.

Mrs Chateris owns the garden and loves it for its beauty. She and Pinnegar often disagree about what should be planted where, but she usually submits to his expertise. In the same fashion, when a plant seems to be in trouble, Pinnegar would ask the advice of the “First Gardener” and go his way.

I am sure Mrs Arkell (and Pinnegar) agreed with the notion that most of us find out, but which Dorothy Francis Gurney put into words: “One is nearer to God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.”

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