Flower beds,
climbing beans,
cabbages, crisp and clean,
the narrow ditch
where nettles sting.
Snail tracks glisten
like silver threads on
the pile of stones at the garden end.
On hands and knees I hold my breath,
gaze through the gap
in the hawthorn hedge,
to the meadow,
where white horses tread.
And everywhere I look,
is new.
(You never forget that view.)
When I was very young, nature engaged in my make-believe games in complete and total co-operation. In my Grandmother’s garden, every day brought a new discovery, stored in my memory box of sights, sounds, tastes, touch and smell, emotions almost beyond a language of descriptive adjectives. Someone said that birds, and animals perceive the world in a different way to humans, this is possibly true, up to a point. But what if, as adults, the ability to listen with our senses diminished along with our outgrown childish toys. The world is more than it seems, it speaks the language of the heart that we are all connected to. I trust my heart to engage with nature in total and complete gratitude.
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About maskednative
There is a gazebo at the end of the garden. It overlooks the estuary. When the tide is in, sea water pools around seaweed covered rocks. The sound is peaceful, meditative. I drink an early morning coffee, listen to the birds singing morning songs, watch a spider spin his fragile life between timber beams above my head. Even in the harshest of winters, the rise and fall of tides, sun-light on water, movement of sky, cloud, moon and stars, allows an awareness of nature behind the mask of perceived reality. I offer my words and pictures in celebration and gratitude to God, for allowing me a glimpse behind the mask.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bio: Teri Flynn was born in Wales of Welsh and Irish Parents. Educated in England, she moved to Co.Waterford, Ireland in 1997 where her Poetry has since appeared in “The Turning Tide” – an anthology of new writing from Co.Waterford. “Southward” The Journal of the Munster Literature Centre and “Imagine” The Tallow Writers Group quarterly review. Her poetry appears in “Sticky Orchard”, a group effort with Alan Garvey, Jim O’Donnell and Anthony O’Neill and grant assisted by Waterford County Council’s Arts Grant Scheme. “Listening To The Grass Grow” with Jim O’Donnell and Anthony O’Neill was published by Edward Power at Rectory press and most recently, in ‘Murmurings’, Remembering Anthony O’Neil, with Jim O’Donnell and Alan Garvey.
Her poem Queen Of The Sea was included in the Chesapeake Exhibition at RUH, Bath, 2011. Figurehead Carver, Andy Peters. Photographic display of Ship’s Figurehead Carvings by Richard Sibley – http://www.tallshipsgallery.com
A themed display of her oil paintings and poems entitled Cynefin, were on display in Waterford during The Imagine Festival in 2017. Cynefin-pronounced kuh-nev-in is a Welsh word meaning habitat or place. A place where a being feels it ought to live, where nature around you feels right and welcoming.
A lifetime spent learning nature’s language would not be a wasted one. Lovely post. I enjoyed it so very much.
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Thank you Zen Doe, it makes me very happy to know you enjoyed my post, high praise indeed. Nature’s language is the simplest to learn, and yet, contained in those few seconds/moments, of our awareness,it offers a lifetime of incredible wonder.
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Oh… I so love your thoughtful remembrances and this poem. If you haven’t already read David Abrams, I think you would be enticed by his descriptions of sentient communication…very like your own. ( The Spell Of the Sensuous) For instance..when we perceive another sentient being we must understand that it is a mutual perception….they are also perceiving us.
Beautiful expression…Thank you !
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Thank you, j.h.white, it is heart-warming to share one’s quiet experiences of the natural world with another perceptive soul. Thank you so much for your appreciation. I will certainly take your advice to look up David Abrams and look forward to reading The Spell Of The Sensuous.
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the art of attention…lovely!
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Thank you for reading my post Virgilio, a big compliment indeed.
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