Eve’s Check-In: Viva la Nature!

Hullo everyone!

How are you doing?

It’s been a busy couple of months for me, what with finishing my degree and moving back home. I’m in the process of applying for my Masters – fingers, thumbs and toes crossed for that!

Here’s a small collection my photography from my back garden in black and white (my favourite) for you to enjoy. I’m still learning, but that’s all part of the fun! Kudos and love to my mother who makes the flowers look as wonderful as they do. (Plus a couple of doggy pics  – aren’t they handsome?)

The top image has words from a recent favourite poem of mine: “Inversnaid” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poem details much the way I empathise with nature, and how sometimes, for better or worse, us humans intervene. It really is beautiful, so I urge you to take a peek.

Try reading it aloud in your best Scottish accent, I do! It’s great fun; plus it’s helped me memorise it.

For the poem see here: Inversnaid

For more on Hopkins see here: The Poet

Take care, with love,

Eve x

How does nature make you feel?

The Evergreen

 
Unbroken road hast led me sagely warm, trails led east to feast upon the chill sweetmeat of me, Thou shall not tender foist mine hand awry, t’were it not, no less, for newness.
        In mind of stony sojourn stippling wings; and what sweeps soft-smooth to the burrowed and Hollowed, O moribund death! doth winter chill, and yielding thee, under ring’d crow-blanched land, Thou not lose sight as the vixen chancing, as far horizons bend little glance, a dance of pivot, of joy.
        Trees, said yew, and oak that falls on hard knees, timely wills are broken, down to old bees That teem with gold to catch a falling star; and in seek of dancing tongues compass far, beyond, Before and done, and death become thee.
O evergreen! thine lovely shrills and plucks of earth, to prove and coddle bluer luck; go, go and
        Catch (your star), what is left of glowing wood.

 

© Eve Redwater 2012
[Nearly forgot the link! – Posted for Dversepoets Open Link Night 50]

Impasse

 
Lavender, plum, where the apples yet sweet,
         and the rumble of cares long lost to the ears,
the earth, and all that was in the merry and the piebald
frost-bitten stripes of corn to the morning dew,
thrice and yet warmed to the sun’s shiveringly
quiveringly lovely gold dapple drunken harmony
         and there, where the stores of flowers
like the rugged memories,
the guttering of trees,
coppices, and natures’ bound to green, to grow
unselfish, to hew, we hew,
         we know no better.

© Eve Redwater 2012

This poor chap was hanging on to this lavender as the wind blew – bless! © Eve Redwater 2012

The Panic of Life

 
Sweet glabrous stem
of the wind overhanging,
below in the fires,
in the earthenware born–
bare in the small, in the stoic and the slim,
cut open what’s thin
and what falls into form.
Full light of the moon
and the tough of a blight,
as the shy ever was,
ever was, ever was–
and the piceous dawn,
that is sore and sound warned,
of the you, and the you,
and the you they adorn.
And we’re through
And we’re through,
of the black final push,
of the plush life you scorned
you are calico born,
through flush and the thrush
in the sparkling stream
in the tin-tin-tin of
a ten-footed dream,
from the air and what was,
at once we remember,
dismember,
without gall, without wing,
without rambling pitch
in the dark dark dark of the
murk of the bark,
we sink and we
swim and we’re bleak and we’re thin
till we’re gone
till we’re gone
prove us wrong,
prove us wrong.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
[Post for DversePoets Open Link Night Week 48 – It’s nice to be back! It feels like forever since I’ve posted, how are you all? Let me know what you think of my contribution today! x]

I’ll Be Back!

Hello everyone,

Sorry for suddenly disappearing!

I’ve got my final University exam coming up, so I’ve not been able to write for the blog – revision, revision.

But, I shall be back soon!

I hope you’ve been keeping well, miss you!

Looking forward to catching up with you all~

Love,

Eve
xxx

I rather like this photo, there’s a lot going on that I didn’t notice as I took it!

Buzzard and Two Crows

 
What road goes ever on and on, in reverend panoply? –
      Of hummerhorns and battle-born shimmering the sky-shiv,
      Blest be those, a paladin, the greener things that simmer
Patina, or perfects left to glimmer in the canopy,

Belabouring the sunlight, the bleak corrode of day,
      The sweetest sour of lips to glide, a boast of bigger wind –
      And in the ring, the rung, the wither beat and bear
Of falling wings comes bitter black, the two italic fray,

What unheard in nature, the buckle of a minion,
      Overhead the hoverings, the smothering and thinner
      Dives become but level dance, a most insipid thing –
But clogs of clouds, O bevelling! Their creation of a pinion,

      And ring’d wroth upon goldén foe they winter,
      Furbished with a glaring, a potted chomp on rudders tail,
Posthumous as the gilded-sting of goldenrod and burr,
Gashed in blueish audience, two bottle’d necks that linger.

© Eve Redwater 2012

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[In this poem, I wanted to express my seeing of two crows fending off a buzzard. This happened to me in the local park the other day – the sun was shining, it was a special sight to see! The “goldén” has an accented “e”, which indicates a stressed emphasis when read out loud – I hope you enjoy!]

Mandarin

 
Upon this glory moulded gilded gold and morning
         Fell obscure to seams behold, the flutter-blood of earth upturned
         The yellow folds, twas kingdom sworn – finer picking, pluck it yearned,
Dawned, upon what love to tell, the finer song in lovage yawning,
I swore, by song in swelled out throttle chords, to mouth, oh spring! –
         Under thimbled tips your swift unsingly, your greener, large rudder wings
         The palest gourd: as fend-off-falcon-gentle swings sweet to the little things,
blow, and wind be fearless upon thy single shin:

You turn, a sibyl songstress the amberest pluck, nihtegales’ wold,
         And be not a tempered thing, shadowed over gleaming sight
         Beauty in the marksman gully thy paints upon mine height,
The slender, supple, oh, wonder flutter of a neck in reddish gold –

Majesty of one that does not contend, nor bend the will of vixens’ den,
         A prairie-borne of one who knowest the better sough
         Unknown to thee bee-catcher wings form finger grins below the bough –
Thy comrade nature, be a beating plume, an eye for eye o’er gloaming glen.

© Eve Redwater 2012

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[I’ve written this for DVersepoets Form for All, where we’ve been tasked of writing in the style of Gerard Manley Hopkins and his beautiful “sprung rhythm” poetry. I wanted to capture the flight of a Mandarin duck over a field with this poem. I’m a big fan of Hopkins, so this was a joy to write!]

Hive to Water

 
In the honeycombed, boney-silence,
where projections of flowers
under the guise of a bees bell of leggy amrita
the huddle and bury of laughter before
strands of milkwood buries within the thistle
the things we have never yet determined from glimpses
lost to the dark;
and if, by some wishbone happening,
should it fall to the river,
its many conflations, in silica, in bees,
born to love against the sage flurry in a fuzz,
you would hear, among the ages of ferns,
the thousand thick hum –
the bodies contained within
the jelly-thick flutings of the brooding hive,
the ‘we’re oh so ready and done for the year‘.

© Eve Redwater 2012

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[It’s taken a while to feel up to writing creatively again, but it’s great to be back! Here’s my contribution to DVersepoets Open Link Night – week 44. Hope you like it~]

Eve’s Check-in: An Instagram Addict is Born!

Hello everyone!

So, the deadline for my dissertation is fast approaching. I know that my posts have been few this month, but it’s been a super busy one so I hope you all forgive me!

I’m making sure to read everyone’s posts as they come, but bear with me, I’m a little slower than usual at the moment!

I’ve recently discovered Instagram, I know, I’m slow, right? 😛 But as a small token of my thanks for your all your thoughts, comments, and ongoing support, I’d like to offer you some photographs that I’ve taken over the course of a few months/years.

Some are fairly recent, like the ones in the Peak District, Sheffield, and others are from my time in Kyoto, Japan 2011. I’ve even thrown in a pic of my doggie, Jodie; isn’t she a little cutie?

In the hills! – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

Firey Maple – Kyoto, Japan.

Sakura – Kyoto, Japan.

Lost in the woods – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

River Guardian – Kyoto, Japan.

Across the bridge – Kyoto, Japan.

Open wide! – Kyoto, Japan.

Birds in flight~ – Weston Park, Sheffield, UK.

How far does it all go? – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

So much green to see~ – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

Pretty Peaks – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

Up in the clouds~ – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

What a view! – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

Cherry Blossoms – Kyoto, Japan.

High-five! – Sheffield Botanical Gardens.

Cloudy~ – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

One of my lovely doggies, Jodie.

Perfect – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

“Nature does not hurry.” – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

Where’s the birdy? – Sheffield Botanical Gardens.

Snowy trees – Peak District, Sheffield, UK.

© Eve Redwater 2011-2012

That’s it for this months check-in! I hope you enjoyed, and that you’re all well! Thank you once again for following, commenting, and being as lovely as you all are.

Until next time~

With love,

Eve xxx

[If you would like to follow me on Instagram, I’m simply known as everedwater – lets link up!]

Second Skin

Turn back time and I will be
as of the wind
sugarcrafted on the skin
with pause for eyes the nose
salacious teethings
and sometimes
when the moon sucks the wood
from yonder trees
and chiff-chaffs stick
their nosey points towards
grey bony threads of
sickle-clouds
remember me
when all is sifted and I a
graft
a slump and spendage
around the shoulders
of stalwart better things

© Eve Redwater 2012

[Posted for Dverse – Meeting the Bar: Allegory – come join the allegorical fun! Also, remember you can always click on my photographs for a bigger view~]