RSS

Category Archives: literature

Sunshine, Armandii and A Poem

22 Feb

Today we woke to rain but in no time the sun had come out and it was warm so we were able to get into the garden.

Steps up tp the garden lined with Tête à Tête

The Armandii, planted last year, is flowering well..

I love the programme The Verb on BBC radio 4 on Sunday afternoons. Today Ian McMillan was talking to Katie Clarke, Director of Literature at The Reader organisation, about reading poetry with people who have dementia and the magic that can happen just as it does when my choir sings in care homes. One of the poems she described as touching a patient was a poem I had never heard before. I hope you enjoy it as I did.

Happiness by Raymond Carver,

So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.

When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.

They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.

I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.

They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.

Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.

https://allpoetry.com/poem/8520185-Happiness-by-Raymond-Carver

Do go to BBC Sounds and listen to the programme. It was really moving.

Strawflower, Caterpillars and A Poem

04 Sep

I love the vibrant orange of this strawflower, Helichrysum.

I don’t know what these dancing caterpillars are but they were all over the red leaves of our Corkscrew Hazel. The nearest id I can get is maybe they aren’t caterpillars at all but Sawfly larvae. Perhaps a knowledgeable reader out there can help..

This lovely poem by Seamus Heaney came my way today. I loved the memories it evoked of lifting sheets off the line with my Mum and folding together. We two still fold line-dried big bedding this way.

11 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on September 4, 2025 in environment, garden, literature, nature, Postaday2025, Uncategorized

Tags: Helichrysum, Sawfly larvae, Seamus Heaney

Seed Head, Berries and Words

29 Aug

I posted these words five years ago and they still work for me.

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on August 29, 2025 in environment, garden, literature, nature, Postaday2025, quotations, Uncategorized

Tags: Albert Camus

Leaves, Chillies and Michael Sheen

26 Oct

Coloured leaves, chillies and a treat for you.

Our chilli plant is still going strong. I delivered these five green ones to a neighbour this afternoon.

Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood has been a favourite of mine since I was a little girl when my parents used to play the Richard Burton version on two LPs and I grew to know it almost by heart. I was later able to choose it as a text for my GCSE pupils to study and I hope I instilled a love for these words in some of them at least. I love, here, how Michael Sheen has interpreted the words and given everything so much expression, just perfect. I hope the link works for you. The video is appearing in my draft but not always when I preview……. Maybe give it a few moments.

https://www.facebook.com/nationaltheatre/videos/248706393938250

5 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 26, 2021 in literature, nature, Photography, poetry, Postaday2021, Uncategorized

Tags: 'Under Milk Wood' Dylan Thomas, Richard Burton

Some Poppies and A Pastiche

28 Jun

A pot-full of various poppies has flowered and is lovely.

Michael Rosen has written a pastiche of Lewis Carroll’s poem, Jabberwocky, a longtime favourite and we love it! It takes the mickey out of recent events in UK politics concerning a video, an affair and a resignation

This came to me via a tweet and some final letters are missing but I hope they don’t spoil your enjoyment.

1 Comment

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 28, 2021 in environment, garden, Humour, literature, Photography, poetry, Postaday2021, Uncategorized

Tags: Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll, Michael Rosen

Story Time, Greetings and Thanks

21 Oct

It’s been another quiet, stay-at-home, curl-up-with-a-good-book sort of a day today too as Storm Brian blows a hoolie outside. Today, however, we have had the best treat, two hours of having a story read to us! Not just any old story either but the first of Philip Pullman’s brilliant new trilogy, The Book of Dust, read by Simon Russell Beale on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon – two and a half hours of entrancement.

Philip Pullman’s new novel

I promised you more of the Onondaga Nation’s Greetings and Thanks to the Natural World. Here are the next two panels.

and from the four directions…..

and now the sun

Tomorrow, the Moon….

Just found this photo which demonstrates the hoolie very well! Thanks to Adam Sprague for this amazing photograph.

9 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 21, 2017 in books, literature, postaday2017, Uncategorized

Tags: Adam Sprague, bbc radio 4, Onondaga Nation Thanksgiving, Philip Pullman, Simon Russell Beale, Storm Brian, The Book of Dust

Spring Crochet, Poem and Godot

25 Feb

1 Attic 24 inspired the project which I have finished today and which is to be a birthday present for Grand-baby T who has a bed all decorated with flowers and who, I am hoping, will love this. I have thoroughly enjoyed making it and made use of Lesley Stanfield’s delightful book, 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet. Click on any photo in the gallery for detail.

Spring wreath

The hanging strap

Narcissi

Daisy

Three Narcissi

Mecanopsis

Butterfly

Mecanopsis

Close up

2 I saw this delightful little poem the other day and it just seemed right for today. Snow is expected in Atlanta where my brother and Sister-in-law live and Spring is showing here – not too far away for the rest of you I hope.

Winter Poem – Nikki Giovanni

once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
still and was a flower

3 This cartoon came my way via Facebook today and it made me laugh! An ex-pupil who is now a teacher himself wrote to tell me that he remembered studying part of the play when in Year 7. We also worked on one of my favourite poems, The Hunchback in the Park by Dylan Thomas and a non-fiction text on homelessness from Shelter. It was a brilliant project if I say so myself!

Godot

23 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 25, 2015 in art, Beauty, craft, crochet, literature, photography, poetry, Postaday 2014

Tags: 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet, Lesley Stanfield, Nikki Giovanni, Winter Poem

Wedding Plans, Poem and Spring Flowers

20 Feb

I spent a delightful morning beginning to plan a Humanist Wedding Ceremony for July with a lovely couple today. I really love this very happy job!

This poem, High Flight, is one of Mr S’s favourites having found it some years ago. It was written by John Magee, Poet and Soldier, 1922–1941. In his seventh flight in a Spitfire Mk I, he had flown up to 33,000 feet. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck by words he had read in another poem — “To touch the face of God.” He completed his verse soon after landing. It never fails to move both of us and you can truly imagine the feelings of freedom as he ‘chased the shouting wind along’

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
– Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”

Spring is showing in various parts of the garden – crocuses in the little herb wall, little Tète à Tète daffodils in the Monkey planter made for me by a local artist, Jeremy Beswick, and Snowdrops close to the house.

Crocuses

Copper monkey planter

Snowdrop

13 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 20, 2015 in Beauty, flowers, Happiness, Humanist ceremony, literature, photography, poetry, Postaday 2015, sculpture

Tags: crocuses, High Flight, Jeremy Beswick, John Magee, snowdrops

Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Theodore Roethke and Friends

28 Nov

1 My lovely Sister-in-law in Atlanta sent me a photo of a tiny visitor to her garden. Thank you, V.

V’s visitor

2 Today’s poem in Poem of the Day 2 conjures up a delightful mind picture for me. I hope it does the same for you.

MY PAPA'S WALTZ by Theodore Roethke
 
 	The whiskey on your breath
 	Could make a small boy dizzy;
 	But I hung on like death:
 	Such waltzing was not easy.
 
 	We romped until the pans
 	Slid from the kitchen shelf;
 	My mother's countenance
 	Could not unfrown itself.
 
 	The hand that held my wrist
 	Was battered on one knuckle;
 	At every step you missed
 	My right ear scraped a buckle.
 	
 	You beat time on my head
 	With a palm caked hard by dirt,
 	Then waltzed me off to bed	
 	Still clinging to your shirt.

“Here’s a poem by a Michigan lad, Theodore Roethke, whose father ran a nursery and greenhouse business in Saginaw. This poem avoids all psycho-babble about love-hate relationships, childhood idealization of the father, family tensions and conflicts, the borderline between play and violence, whatever. It avoids those cliches and trite formulations by instead seeing specific things and moments of experience — by imagery, in a word.
As you read it, avoid cliché reactions having to do with dysfunctional families, alcoholism, child abuse, and other newspaper topics. Such matters are real enough, but stock responses can block your perceptions. Instead, concentrate on the particulars.
Every image here deserves to be pondered and tasted to the full, for its emotional richness. The overall tone and feeling contains love and pain and humor and nostalgia all blended. This is a poem worth memorizing.”

I don’t know who wrote this but I found it here. I never thought of this poem as being about anything other than a Daddy dancing with his son. It remind me of dancing on my own Daddy’s feet and of watching my children’s Daddy dancing with them. We all loved the craziness of it all.

3 I have had a lovely afternoon with friends – chatting, eating mincepies and homemade cookies and planning next year’s meeting and social programme for the Cornwall Humanists.

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on November 28, 2014 in America, Beauty, literature, nature, photography, poetry, Postaday 2014

Tags: Golden-Crowned Kinglet, MY PAPA'S WALTZ, Theodore Roethke

Maya Angelou, Knitted Staircase and Yorkshire Stone

28 May

1 Maya Angelou died today. As a spokesperson for her family said, “She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being. She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace.”
She was a wonderful woman and a role model for us all. I loved her writings and especially her poem ‘Still I Rise’ which you will find at the end of today’s post. I loved her philosophy and these words that she left us – “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”

2 I have joined just five of our knitted pieces together and they fill our staircase! I have eight more here and there are at least five more almost completed by friends. I’ll need the garden to lay them all out! Imagine SEVEN MILES of peaceful protest knitting stretched between Atomic Weapons Establishment sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield, Berkshire, where nuclear weapons are made.

Some of our knitting for Wool Against Weapons

3 Another job I have enjoyed doing today is the annual power washing of the Yorkshire stones of the patio. It always delights me afresh to see how pretty the stones are and to re-discover the fern patterns in them.

Feathery markings

Still I Rise Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.