Waiting on the quayside to see our boat brought in for the winter, I watched a family of swans glide by. There are seven cygnets, one parent leading and the other bringing up the rear, but I could only catch the beginning of the line. It’s lovely to see that all seven have reached such a size safely. You can see five of them as fluffy babies if you click this link.

Swan family on their way by

There have been poems on the BBC all day to mark National Poetry Day. Over the years I have been writing this blog I have given you many of my favourites. Today, I give you the one that the lovely Mr Smith has chosen, Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas.

Fern Hill – Poem by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and
cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

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.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking
warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Waiting later at the lights to leave the quay, I was behind a van with some bumper stickers that I liked so out came my camera!

Save the bees; AIDS awareness;Peace

This post is for my very Dear Friend, Kath, who died far too soon on this day in 2011 and in whose memory I write this Blog. Someone said that we die twice – once when we stop breathing and the second time when our name is said for the last time. Kath lives on, in my heart, in my memory and in my living. Cheers Kath, and thanks for your love.