When lockdown began, the days were still short and the nights were long. On my walks I sought out daffodils and crocuses (croci?) to brighten my day. As time passed and the days lengthened, there were tulips and hyacinths, then pansies, azaleas, rhodedendrons and azaleas. Now the roses are in full bloom, sweet peas, wallflowers, geraniums and hydrangeas, clematis and honeysuckle all add colour and even heavy scent to the air.
The earth is full of 'pied beauty' as Gerard Manely Hopkins would have expressed it.
This riot of colour sits on the steps of a pentecostal church not too far from where I live. Each time I pass by it lifts my spirits, seeming to be, in and of itself, an expression of praise directed heavenward.
Here is the poem...
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pierced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.