Silk route.
At the surgery this morning, I ask at reception if, at some time, I could see the nurse so that she could check the dressing on my scalded stomach, where I spilt a cup of red bush tea last week. She could see you at 10.30, the receptionist says. I look at my watch: it is just 10.30. "Yes, " she says, as if it is hard to believe. "You timed it just right".
A sign that Spring has arrived: this morning on waking, I hear doves engaged in their particular version of Morse code, moaning gently to themselves in a soothing monotone. It makes me think of that verse in The Song of Solomon in The Bible. " For lo, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." The words still make me think of a reptile and tempt me to imagine what sort of song might emerge from the small head at the end of its long lugubrious neck. Though I know, of course, that it was the turtle dove which the translators of the poem had in mind..
2 comments:
Funny thing, Joe, Spring has finally showed up
here, Philadelphia PA, for a preview today after one perfectly miserable 4 day cold rain and wind storm.
I realize March still has some miles to go, but
I am more hopeful.
Oh, I'm so glad. Intermittently, over the last 60-odd years I too have wondered what sound the turtle would make. Given CC's reference, I should add that the question often arose, as it were, from a bowl of snapper turtle soup a regular, and not expensive, delicacy in the City of Brotherly Love. It came with a miniature decanter of sherry from which I never held back. Gosh, I could do with a bowl just now. It's been 38 years.
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