Microcosmic

  the mist the mist came down last night, came in softly a drowned world between here and Winter Hill just spires and tree tops jutting out above; archipelago in Pacific fog grey but lustrous - has eroded edges all the gaps are filled with mother of pearl the middle-willow distance gone over, lightly stippled with a softening brush so watercolours run, bleeding into tump-grassy nearby and all that's behind words are becoming detached corner first shaking free, the children are leaving home what used to be a branch is shedding nouns twig, leaf, acorn and bark have now all gone borders dissolved and separation smudged all of it replaced with a sea of this the sun comes at last pooling rosy mist white whips tilt and float up, slow and steady a flock of birds drops down reattaching returning to things, the birds are words

the news broke around six o'clock robins heard it first plucked colours from their breasts then sang it to the dark that coloured the tiny parts exposed by dawn's needle etching clouds chinese whispered the light held on to it for a while then passed it on leaking ochre rumours bleeding into flame the hills heard the word lifted the veil but slowly a star burst the horizon flooded a piece of it fireworked the fields crackerjacked through trees fireflied the mist even glow wormed webs the news broke around six o'clock everyone knew by seven

Gleaming lances of shivelight pierce the canopy - dawn’s first rays threading their way through the outstretched arms of a lone ash tree. Just before starlight meets the ground it illuminates a patch of morning mist. Solar spotlights pick out an ever changing fragment of the new day with a shimmering band - shot through with essence of firefly... Many thanks to the sun, mist, trees and grass for the morning display they put on!

I set myself the very enjoyable challenge of trying to photograph and, where possible, identify all the species of insects I found along a short stretch of path on my patch – in the space of a couple of hours. There were a lot! Once you get your eye in it’s amazing how much diversity there is – everything you look at seems to be something new. And you can do this almost anywhere – a flower bed in the garden is perfect. These are just the ones I managed to photograph, the actual number of insect species that make this plot their home will be several times this. And these are just the insects, if you broadened it to the spiders, worms, molluscs, plants, higher animals etc, etc - and even the microbes - there will be way, way more. Then think about individuals, not just species – astronomical numbers in this tiny fragment of planet Earth. We hear a lot these days about wildlife numbers being depleted, this is true and very concerning. However numbers are often compared...

I had a bit of a slump last week so I wasn't able to do my usual morning patch walk. Instead I sat in the garden for about an hour. This took me right back to what it is was like during my 10 year stint in a wheelchair.  In a good way. It reminded me of an insight, seemingly obvious, but nonetheless striking. If you can't go out into the world, the world comes to you. As I sat and let the dawn chorus wash over me - song thrush, Blackbird, goldcrest, skylark, yellow hammer, birdsong drip dripped via ear drums, into my brain - delivered right to me... ...and sensed the golden touch of the first rays of the morning sun. It felt like nature was bringing me gifts - laying them at my feet. I was being waited on hand and foot. I would never claim that being unable to walk is even remotely a good thing - that would be patently absurd (not to mention insulting to many people). However there are consolations. Part of it is lowering your sights...or more like altering your sights,...

a song sings the morning into being bootstraps the world from dark nothing notes flow out and tumble down the slope heading over heels bouncing off rocks, changing direction eddying into backwaters, spinning a while then petering out to a coda of afterthought amber music drips onto rich brown music even the splashes are music the song sings new leaves onto birches and paints the grass a deeper green more colours incant the parts that were missing filling them in because the song has made its own light now the song sings a bird to the top of tree then stops as the blackbird flies into the morning the morning it has made -------------------------------------------------------------------- There are several highlights for me that mark moments in the year – in nature. Many concern signs of spring – the first hazel catkins, the first Chiffchaff song ... Hearing the first blackbird song is one of these highlights - usually in January or February and usually ...

rounding winter's grey corner I'm sprayed in the face with paint yellow points splatter my retinas and then drip  drops trailing vertical paths like a thousand star speckled wagtails bursting out of the sun so impossibly bright tassels rind of lime as tinsel a burning hazel bush that sears everything around it its catkins strung between earthed dull gravity and a skyfull of living things wanting to live ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It may well sound like I'm going way over the top about this catkin festooned hazel. But it stopped me in my tracks. This gets me every year - but miraculously more so every year. I doubt that I'd have been more moved by seeing the Mona Lisa. I'll even admit to welling up a bit. It just seemed to have every spring I've ever seen encapsulated in those early January catkins. Just spring coming round again, nature doing its thing, without fuss of fanfare (except from me!), and life wanting to li...

"I know each lane, and every valley green. Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wildwood" - Milton Arranweb Spider's Web; Lancashire Dialect Bleb An air bubble in ice; perhaps a variant of 'blob' Carr Damp woodland with alder or willow;  Middle English I've been inspired recently by two wonderful books, Rober Mcfarlanes’s  “ Landmarks ” and Dominick Tyler’s “ Uncommon Ground : a word-lover's guide to the British landscape”.  Both books explore the potency our nature language – the words that describe the places, hills, waters, weather, paths, fields and wildlife of our countryside. I have compiled an A-Z of the patch, with terms that home in on a specific detail. These kinds of precise words help us to notice things, that might otherwise be overlooked, they root us in the landscape, give us a sense of place, they perform a kind of word-magic. Delf Something that has been dug, such as a ditc...