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Daily Archives: April 2, 2024

Potting On, Paella and A Poem

So much potting on today that a whole team of us were working on many baby plants including cucumbers, okra and cosmos. The tomato plants sown only a few weeks ago were being planted out into a poly tunnel.

Tomato plants

Tomatoes going into their growing space

More very heavy rain

Our lunch today was the most delicious paella made by one of the volunteers – such a delicious and warming meal after a hard working morning.

I saw the following poem on Facebook and loved it so I wrote to the poet, Caroline Mellor, and she very kindly sent it to me to post here. It is printed in her book, “The Honey in the Bones.’ This poem links so well with the song I posted a couple of days ago which can be found here.

We Need to Teach the Children the Old Words

“Words are world-makers”

– Robert MacFarlane

We need to teach the children the old words,

words like brabble and grubble,

twitter-light and clinkerbell;

words which dance and trip and slip

and drip like honey off the tongue

Teach them that a hazy halo of cloud

around the moon is called a moonbroch

and that swiftly moving clouds are named cairies;

how a vixen’s wedding is a sunny shower of rain,

and that a single sunbeam breaking through thick cloud

is known as a messenger

Teach them to know the seasons and scents

of queen of the meadow and bride of the sun,

how to tell Jupiter’s staff from fairy fingers

and which roses bloom with the strawberry moon

Teach them to spot pricklebacks in the tottlegrass,

how to recognise a smeuse or a bishop-barnaby,

when to watch the sky for flittermice and yaffles,

and to pay attention to the dumbledore and mousearnickle

as she graces the lazy leahs of summer

Teach them a few of the old Sussex words for mud,

like gubber and slub and stodge and pug,

so they know that the precious soil beneath their toes

is anything but worthless dirt

Teach them to be users and keepers and makers

of the words which bring the land alive:

a storybook, where everything has its rightful place,

including us;

where the wilds are fearful and filled with magic

and people do noble things, and nothing is impossible

In this world of harsh new words –

words like planetary dysmorphia and solastalgia,

extinction debt and grief mitigation,

megadrought and megafire,

anthropogenic, pyrocene,

words which alarm and get stuck in our throats

describing a world which our hearts cannot grasp –

we need to teach the children the old words,

so that if they should feel lost,

the old words might colour for them

a warm and breathing, living map,

a light to guide them safely home.

Once again, as when I have posted other poems, WordPress has decided to take out all the verse breaks. Why do they do this? It makes me so mad!

Glossary – also given to me by the poet, Caroline Mellor, for which I am very grateful. Regular readers will know how I love words, old and new, and I just love all these and the poem.

brabble — to argue loudly about matters of no importance
grubble — to grope around in the dark for something that you can’t see
clinkerbell — icicle
twitter-light — twilight
queen of the meadow — meadowsweet
bride of the sun — calendula
Jupiter’s staff — mullein
fairy fingers — foxglove
prickleback — hedgehog
tottle grass — high grass
smeuse —the gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal
bishop-barnaby — ladybird
yaffle — green woodpecker
flittermouse — bat
dumbledore — bumblebee
mousearnickle — dragonfly
leah — meadow, clearing
gubber — black mud of rotting organic matter
pug — a kind of loam, particularly the sticky yellow Wealden clay
stodge — thick puddingy mud
slub — thick mud