Days of Rain

The last  couple of months have been very wet. A week that has more than a couple of dry days is a real bonus. I guess we have to get used to more stormy weather, more rain and more unseasonal high temperatures. Recently we had an overnight temperature of fourteen degrees – that’s ten degrees higher than we’d  expect at this time of the year.

Now we hear of severe floods in Pakistan and various other places. What we have to cope with pales into insignificance. OK, the grass is six inches high in places and we are still waiting for it to be dry enough to cut, but that really doesn’t matter. We are fortunate.

Donning waterproofs before heading out for a walk is becoming a daily routine.If it’s not raining now, it probably will be before we get back home. There are some compensations though. Without the days of sunhine and showers we wouldn’t get rainbows. And what gladdens the heart, lifts the spirits and makes us smile more than a rainbow?

 

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Heat!

Maybe it’s a feeble excuse but I’m blaming the heat of the last month for not adding anything to this blog. I can’t remember a summer when I’ve spent so much time wearing shorts and trying to keep cool – not even when I was ten!

We have grass that’s looking more like coconut matting and the rest of the garden  need regular watering as rain has been distinctly absent for weeks – having written that will perhaps encourage a deluge – maybe not such a good prospect.

With the dearth of rain has come a dearth of inspiration for poetry and writing of any sort. My brain doesn’t seem to function as well in hot weather and I find myself doing things on automatic pilot – and not a very reliable pilot these days.

This strange year has meant that we have gone months without seeing some people that we used to see often. As a result, there has been a realisation that some we won’t see again and others in the meantime, have suffered from serious deterioration in health.  It’s hard to imagine now, a time when life will return to what we used to think of as ‘normal’ and take for granted.

Perhaps we have learnt not to take things for granted and in future we will appreciate things more. Hopefully the human race will also take more  care not just of each other, but also of our planet which desperately needs us all to consider how vulnerable it is.

We had planned a return visit to New Zealand last autumn, but that of course didn’t happen. It seems unlikely that we’ll get there next year either, but this poem was written when remembering our time on South Island.

The Trees Cry

The rain and dew that fall

are tears of sky father Rangi.

Tane, god of great trees,

god of forests must weep today.

We are losing forests.

We are suffering from floods –

houses gone, walls gone

again and again gone.

We may weep at the massacre

of trees but, can we restore

forests, plant more, care more,

care enough for our planet Earth?

Our beaches exhibit wondrous

driftwood sculptures. Yes, this

is Nature’s uplifting art

quirky, unexpected, inspiring hope.

Change in the Weather

We’re going to have to get used to the fact that the seasons are going to be unseasonal. We’re going to be getting more stormy weather and extremes of temperature look like they’ll be the norm not abnormal.

Where we are we haven’t, thankfully, been getting temperatures over 30 degrees. If it gets above the mid twenties that’s too hot for me. This week has been decidedly mixed – alternating from hot and sunny to cool, wet and extremely windy with the odd flashes of sheet lightning thrown in.

Yesterday was a perfect day – not too hot. A day to go for a walk near the sea. No crowded beaches here with thousands of folk not caring about self distancing, but just the lone fisherman, a Buddha like figure squatting on the shingle and, in the next bay, a flock of gulls gathering as they do where the burn flows into the sea. As we approached, they took off and landed further along the shore. That reminded me of a poem I wrote a few years back.

Take Off

Nature’s Concordes

the herring gulls

thrust forward on a sandy runway,

take off over the sea,

encompass the sky in parentheses

and return,

land safely on wet sand

awaiting the next departure.

Too many of us?

I am not living in a part of the world where acres of trees are being cut down so land can be used for producing plants to feed cattle or pigs to produce an ever increasing demand for meat.

I am not living in a part of the UK where acres of moorland are being burnt so the land will be more suitable for rearing grouse to provide sport for the  ‘sportsmen’ in shooting parties.

However, this does not mean that I can ignore what’s happening in other places, especially those that are not a million miles away from here.  We can still walk through woodland and enjoy listening to the birds, but even here there are an increasing number of farmers building huge barns to house cattle rather than have them free to roam and feed in the fields. We are told that the cows like it indoors!

The human race is a problem for planet earth. There are too many of us.

One of 7.7 Billion Trying to Make Sense

We live in a world where

there’s too many people,

not enough food, too many droughts,

not enough water – despite the floods.

 

We live in a world where

we’re losing the forests

to acres sown with plants

for feeding beasts to feed to people.

 

We live in a world where

there are too many babies

born every year and where

too many people are living longer.

 

Can this be changed? Earth can’t sustain this.

How can we change it, make sense of  it?