The swinging ‘60s. Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Birds! No not the mini-skirted ones hanging out, downtown, in parks and city streets, nor the collared dove, though I was seduced for a while. And a pretty girl can still turn my head today, much to my wife’s annoyance. Think Felise in the novel – ‘The Dewy Morn’ by Richard Jefferies.
“Felise walked up out of the water on to the turf and sat down at the edge of the shadow of the trees. … She thought of nothing but the sun and wind, the flowers and the running stream. She listened to the wind in the trees and began herself to sing – singing of ‘the woven embroidery of the earth’ threaded into her very being …”
Pure beauty (of imagination). And nothing to do with sex! Well maybe it is. I don’t know but that’s all you’re going to get. Now back to birds.
I saw plenty of birds on the local allotments – the only bit of green anyways near a stones throw of our new home. It became my ‘local patch’. I ticked off most of the commoner birds – blackbird, song thrush, woodpigeon, dunnock blue and great tits, chaffinch, goldfinch, whitethroat – and yellowhammers. It was also on my way to school – well sort of. I was often late!
But there were distractions at school too. No not girls. Well maybe!
daydreaming
waiting for the bell
my piano tutor
I had a sort of crush on my music teacher – she was kind and beautiful. I imagined her a bit like Felise. She seemed to know how I pined for the woods and fields of my early childhood. Even today, on the rare occasions I hear the song of a yellowhammer, the memories come flooding back.
humming along
to Beethoven’s fifth
[…] ‘There is sunshine in the song – and whose colour, like that of the wild flowers and the sky, has never faded from my memory. His [Yellowhammer] plumage gives a life and tint to the hedge, contrasting so brightly with the vegetation and with other birds. His song is but a few bars repeated, yet it has a pleasing and soothing effect in the drowsy warmth of summer.’ […]
Wild Life in a Southern County (1879)
There was a lake too, a short cycle ride away, where in the summer hols, I would go to watch birds. And think! At one end there was an old church idyllically located on it’s own Island with a little stone bridge over the moat …
still waters
a fish jumps … through
my reflection
Colin kindly commented – “This is, dare I say, ‘perfect’ (as perfect as these things ever are) where ‘reflection’ means two things at the same time – something on the water and meditation interrupted by the conceptual fish that often disrupts ordinary thinking in everyday life.”
And on days when midsummer clouds scudded across the sky, I would sit under some willows and read Richard Jefferies – a kindred spirit who seemed to think and feel the way I did.
coot skitter
among lily pads
summer rain
They say that schooldays are the best days of your life. I’m not so sure. But they were a hell of a lot better than the following years.
