The Trees The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too. Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain. Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh. Philip Larkin Last month (May 2020) trickled in, cool and grey, and gushed out in glorious sunshine. Perhaps that is what has helped to make the last few weeks of lockdown bearable. I picked one of our poetry anthologies ( The Ring of Words edited by Roger McGough, 1998, Faber & Faber) off the bookshelves and selected poems that I considered to be positive, soothing or uplifting. The poem above was surprisingly optimistic for Philip Larkin. So many people are writing either professionally or as amateurs about the current public health, economic and soci
Absent Place — an April Day — Daffodils a-blow Homesick curiosity To the Souls that snow — Emily Dickinson I don't usually start with poems but the lines from this one by Emily Dickinson struck a chord with me. We all know what happened at the end of March and that for five weeks we have been living with so many restrictions. I have to say I have enjoyed working from home and not having to sit in traffic. Nearly every day I have gone for a walk or two within the 2km radius and have explored nearly every road in my area. There's so much to see and so many changes to note. Over the last five weeks I must have photographed nearly every paused construction site in this part of Dublin. It will be interesting to revisit them in a year's time to see what happened to them. Apart from walks my main activities have been cooking and knitting. But I have continued to cook and bake too, trying out new recipes, repeating older ones. The spouse and I have also been recreating paintings