Month: November 2014
A TIME OF GHOSTS: I HOPE YOU WILL READ IT
The Plane Tree – The Most Valued, Literally, European Tree
The Plane Tree would find little competition if we were to choose a tree for Europe – a tree which helps define a common heritage and culture for the majority of European citizens. It is also a tree whose current threatened circumstances are the result of the Second World War, a reminder in these days when we can so easily forget the circumstances of war, that it continues to affect our landscapes and therefore us.
Its presence in our urban environment allow Plane’s to be the most readily recognisable tree to the majority, this also means it is a tree that few celebrate – it is common. And indeed WWI soldiers would surely have associated the landscape of the Plane lined roads of Northern Europe with the awfulness of the war itself.
It remains a tree that evokes so many memories for so many Europeans. Its dominance as a ‘landscaping’
View original post 281 more words
Is better protection for ancient woodland more than just a pipe dream?
The more people read this the better
A random walk along the Lough shore
Yesterday we walked a short stretch of the shore line of Lough Neagh. It was after mid-day and we needed to stretch our legs after an early lunch. The sun was very bright in an icy blue sky with just a few soft clouds. The surface of the water was like glass.
I took a couple of photographs with my mobile phone. It was so bright that I couldn’t actually see the detail of what I was photographing.
Black trees,
a few leaves;
winter almost here.
The Art of Walking
Into the Forest
Others have walked this way,
as the surface of the track
is rutted and worn
but I have seen no-one today.
The trees arch high above me,
their canopy
almost closing out the sky.
The path before me
curves into the distance,
going deeper and deeper into the forest;
another bend,
another fretted view between the trees.
An easy wind
whispers in the branches
and high above,
a crow calls.
My foot crunches a fallen twig,
and still
the quiet presence of this place
slips deeper and deeper
into my being.
(I wrote this poem after a walk in the Mourne Mountains last summer and then seeing a painting by the Japanese artist Kawasai Hasui 1883-1957). (And then re-wrote it when I viewed it on-line).
