Inside a parrot tulip, the sun is stirring.A new note book today. Eight identical black pocket books are stacked beside the printer. I am not sure that I am proud of their content. To begin with I omitted dates altogether, so that they do not help me, as a diary might, piece together the passing days. Now at least I know that the last book begins on June 6, 2008. I see on the first page that I was reminding myself that the Spanish word for swift is venceja, which means that I must have been watching those agile birds slicing the air above the old town of Sitges, and listening to their sharp, wild cries.
When the series started, the books were almost entirely devoted to drawings, now relatively few are scattered through the pages. The words are hard to read and are marred by hasty composition. Still the books are a precious record for me of thoughts and observations, which have often filtered through to this blog.
From the train I see hazel catkins. Who was it who compared these parallel spikes of minute flower clusters to "green rain"? I think to myself that it might be Mary Webb, the now forgotten Shropshire, poet and novelist. I have a slender volume of her poems, but cannot find the line.
3 comments:
Years ago I came upon a book "The essential Mary Webb". Potential responses are innumerable.
You will know that Mary Webb's husband, Henry Webb, was the nephew of Captain Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel.
I read 'Gone to Earth' years ago, a terribly overwrought bit of Thos Hardy meets DH Lawrence I seem to recall. I don't know any of her poetry. Those vertical striations of catkins are interestingly like rain, but surely are yellow not green?
The notebook thing is tricky. I quite like the chaos of mine, and the surprise sometimes at finding things I'd completely forgotten, but on probably should at least apply a date to things for context.
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