Summer Dreams from Childhood
In the fifty five years that separate me from those days the world has changed immeasurably. The meadows are no longer full of colour and sound. The grass still dries in the hot sun but there are no longer the rustles of insects or drone of bees. The flowers are gone and the insects killed by pesticide. It is a silent world.
The ponds and streams are devoid of frogs, newts and sticklebacks, the countryside bereft of reptiles.
It is a sad world now. The poems of nature have been shredded by the carelessness and profit of the modern world and I cannot help thinking that we are all the less for it.
I plucked these pictures from my memory.
Summer Dreams from childhood
I walk the meadows
Alive with splashed colour –
Impressionist’s dream
Of oxtail daisy, poppy and purple vetch.
By the hedgerow
The cowparsley stood bold
Above the feather-tops of grass,
Like cocky acacia on a diminutive British savannah.
In the cool of the shade,
By the reed rimmed pond,
The frogs jumped and splashed
As I passed by,
Pond skaters danced on invisible skin
And tadpoles cruised the depths,
Nosing the weed on which newts clung,
Still as statues
Alert with beady eyes.
Caterpillars spun their silken webs
Around the nettle heads
And clumped in colonies
Of black and yellow spiny families.
The green grass baked in the dynamo of heat’s electricity.
Only a soft breeze stirred the leaves in lazy caress,
To suck the moisture free
And rob the drying plants;
To carry off the spoils
Of the seeds and scents of a million petals,
Arid blades and seared soil.
The hum of nature –
The stridulation of grasshoppers
Merged with the rustle of tiny feet
On crisp leaves;
The drone of bees
As they trundle from flower-head to nectary
Laden down with yellow pollen-swollen legs,
Drunk with the heady sweet fumes.
Above, the butterflies silently dance
In tumbling multi-coloured clouds,
Spilling on the breeze in gay gavotte.
In the streams the sticklebacks,
With red bellies like aquatic robins,
Dash for cover
And dart from weed to bank, to hide
Safe within protective caverns
Hollowed out by crystal clear water,
As the currents eat out the overhangs
To which they zig-zag in a flash.
Grass-snakes, slow-worms and lizards bask
In the hot sun
And slide into the undergrowth
At the first vibration of footfall on soil –
Lizards jumping through the
Raffia grass with loud clatter
As I delight.
Pigeons coo and woo
As songbirds sought the highest perches
To sing their songs of love and fury –
Laying claim to all that they surveyed.
The world alive with scent, colour and life.
Summer sang with a song on interwoven melodies, big and small,
That set the spirit free,
In harmony
Of pleasure and peace.
Lying in the long grass,
Surrounded by bobbing flowers and creeping creatures,
In an island
Adrift from civilisation,
As the yellow sun
Gleamed down from a deep blue infinity,
Giving perspective
Through the lazy suds of clouds.
With all the time in the world.
Wanting for nothing more.
A world now locked away in the past,
In my memories,
And gone.
Opher 30.10.2016
If you would Like to purchase any of my poetry books they can be purchased in paperback or digitally from Amazon for £3 or £4..
In the UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1477349606&sr=1-2-ent
In the USA:
https://www.amazon.com/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1477349625&sr=1-2-ent
tps://www.amazon.com/Vice-Verse-Opher-Goodwin-ebook/dp/B010U4E9B6/ref=la_B00MSHUX6Y_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1477387551&sr=1-15&refinements=p_82%3AB00MSHUX6Y
I was struck recently by the contrast to what was and what is in the area that I grew up in.
I was back there recently skirting about old haunts on the search for magic mushrooms. All the paths I knew were overgrown, the flat field where we played football was overgrown. It was a decent day, quite warm, sun out, yet not a young person to be seen anywhere. Just 2 ramblers passing through and one lady with dog. It would appear to me we have an entire generation that doesn’t know what fresh air is with being comatose at home playing X-box – he says typing on his laptop, but you know what I mean!
What’s going on here?
I think you’ve put your finger on a big problem. Back in our childhood kids were out on the street, in the fields, up the trees and a lot were dabbling about in the ponds and streams. They were close to nature and understood it more. These kids are totally divorced. They don’t know or care about what’s going on – it doesn’t affect them at all. They do not feel part of it.
And what’s even weirder is that we weren’t “told” to go and do that, it wasn’t part of any “education programme”.
Our house games were for rainy days only.
But they do have a feeling of being part of something – that facebook and twitter stuff gives them an identity of involvement – precisely what in I’ll never understand, but that seems to fit the bill for many. Beats me.
The parental perception seems to be that the world is full of paedophiles and axe-murderers – the kids are better off indoors. Total fallacy. The murder rate is well down and I doubt that there’s any more paedophiles than there ever were.
The kids seem to get into a social trivia escapism and popularity scene obsessed with celebrity. Vacuous and horrible.
After the war there was much ‘waste ground’ where nature had a chance. This is an affectionate glimpse of that time. Couldn’t people be encouraged to turn back gardens into meadows?
I protect my hedges and trees with a vengeance. If only everyone encouraged pesticide-free wilderness!