Poetry

Yes, this could get schmaltzy, so if you have a low-schmaltz threshold, come back tomorrow.

I was having a Robert Browning moment this morning, 'Home Thoughts from Abroad', only I wasn't thinking about the
'Oh to be in England now that April's there,' idea, more the picture he paints of the signs of spring in England.
'Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge, leans to the field and scatters on the clover, blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's edge.
That's the wise thrush, he sings each song twice over lest you should think he never could recapture that first, fine, careless rapture,'

I can just picture it, I can hear that thrush, but I can't myself use language like a paintbrush in this way. I admire tremendously the way poets protect and enrich the language with their creativity. I love the English language and I love the French language. I despise misuse of both through carelessness. I really buy into the Romantic notion that the poet is an agent of elevation of the soul.

Austen told me that a big problem for him as Head of an English department, is in persuading his staff that they can teach poetry. And of course they can, they've all done it as part of their degrees. I can teach poetry but I can't write it. And the fact is that the pure emotion in much poetry is a perfect way of approaching certain abstract subjects. War, nature, love.

If I were to write poetry, it would be doggerel, 'O Tempora, O Mores, O life under the Tories, it is not fun, hun.....' and what have you.

The day, cold and crisp, pushed the poetry out and let the real world in. Finally the hummingbirds have arrived, they overwinter in Mexico like many Canadians and now they have come back to nest and breed. I was fortunate enough to see two rufous hummingbirds today, a male and a female and when I was nearly back home this evening, a bald eagle circling the field opposite.
I wonder if they noticed me.

PS. I wish I could, but I cannot claim the photo as one of mine, it is by Paul Suchanek, I borrowed it, I hope he won't mind.