When I am standing inside a cathedral of trees, surrounded by a hundred different shades of green- lime, spring, olive, velvet, emerald, moss, pea, viridian, pine, grass, apple, I have no trouble imagining a magical world and my safe place within it.
I believe.
I just wish I could hold onto the moment.
(I know, I know, live in the NOW. But it’s so hard to remember that when you’re getting pummeled by an invisible something with a wicked right jab. I do try to take a few deep breaths, close my eyes, acknowledge those moments when I feel blissfully, incandescently happy, fleeting though they might be and that their dark nemeses, the depressing sad moments are just as fleeting though it seems that they will go on and on forever).
Perhaps I am wrapping this recollection up in shiny paper, but I remember in my ‘salad’ days (more GREEN!) being quite fancy-free or at least confident that things eventually right themselves.
Maybe I just enjoyed the high hills and deep valleys more.
Now I crave the flat plain.
Let me just say without going into detail that so far 2012 has been a year of endings and immense change and many worries.
A little excitement, a little imbalance is OK. Otherwise I’d prefer that the days just stretch ahead of me, all virtually the same. Remember how it felt the last day of school in the summer? When there seemed to be no end of sunny days, warm but not too warm, and endless things to look forward to? Fishing, and riding your bike, and skinned knees, and BBQ, and the beach, and sand in your bathing suit, and frogs chirruping at night, and cicada skins and grass snakes colored like blades of grass? That’s how I want to live.
Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorite poems, FERN HILL by Dyan Thomas:
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
You can read the whole thing here
Love your blog! Wish we could have coffee together this morning…
Your fan,
Gail
Or a drink! This evening! xx
These days, I’ve also been craving more of “the flat plain” (and I mean just about every possible sense of that last word).
And here’s to those moments of simple magic on Fern Hill – wherever, and whenever, we might find them.
I read Fern Hill for the first time in High School- which normally would be a guaranteed turn off- studying themes, etc…- but I just fell in love with its lyricism and imagery. Still love it!