Cait's Photos

November skyline

2011-11-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

November evening

2011-11-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

Winter Sunday 2010

2010-12-19T09:11:00.000-08:00

Autumn Sunday

2010-10-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

October

2010-10-14T00:30:00.000-07:00

Afternoon Walk

2010-08-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

Summer Garden

2010-07-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

Trelystan

2010-03-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

Frozen River

2010-01-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Winter

2010-01-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

Winter Trees

2009-11-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

Winter Trees

The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.
On their blotter of fog the trees
Seem a botanical drawing.
Memories growing, ring on ring,
A series of weddings.

Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery,
Truer than women,
They seed so effortlessly!
Tasting the winds, that are footless,
Waist-deep in history.

Full of wings, otherworldliness.
In this, they are Ledas.
O mother of leaves and sweetness
Who are these pietas?
The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but easing nothing.

Sylvia Plath

And here is one with an angel

Fields of Gold

2009-10-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

October

2009-10-26T06:42:00.000-07:00

Photos taken on my walk around the garden this morning. The poem is an old one.

October Rose

Will she hang on to Christmas or is her blooming over?
Once she was lush and luxuriant, now she’s just a late October rose,
a gift that’s rare but all the more special in the garden.
Savour her, scarlet, salmon or crimson,
not red-hot, not blowsy,
too old for blushing
yet still young enough to pick.
Still beauteous of colour, still romantic
with scent enough to sate your senses.
Still inspiring a crush, or a rush of love.
But her petals fall so quickly now,
soon she’ll be a sucker gone to seed,
soon banished, quickly dried and then cast away.

©Cait O’Connor

St Mary's - Middleton on the Hill

2009-08-17T04:38:00.000-07:00

Powis Castle and Gardens

2009-07-29T12:36:00.000-07:00

Summer Shower

A drop fell on the apple tree,

Another on the roof;

A half a dozen kissed the eaves,

And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,

That went to help the sea.

Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,

What necklaces could be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roads,

The birds jocoser sung;

The sunshine threw his hat away,

The orchards spangles hung.

The breezes brought dejected lutes,

And bathed them in the glee;

The East put out a single flag,

And signed the fete away.

Emily Dickinson

Morville

2009-06-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

Morning

2009-06-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

The Crystal Gazer

I shall gather myself into my self again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one.
I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.
I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent.
Watching the future come and the present go -
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In tiny self-importance to and fro.

Sara Teasdale

By the forge

2009-05-18T15:14:00.000-07:00

Blossom

2009-05-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

The business of a poet, said Imlac, is to examine, not the individual but the species, to remark general properties and large appearances. He does not number the streaks of the tulip.
Samuel Johnson 1709-1784

Forget-Me-Not

A gallant knight and his betroth'd bride,
Were walking one day by a river side,
They talk'd of love, and they talk'd of war,
And how very foolish lovers are.

At length the bride to the knight did say,
'There have been many young ladies led astray
By believing in all their lovers said,
And you are false to me I am afraid.'

'No, Ellen, I was never false to thee,
I never gave thee cause to doubt me;
I have always lov'd thee and do still,
And no other woman your place shall fill.'

'Dear Edwin, it may be true, but I am in doubt,
But there's some beautiful flowers here about,
Growing on the other side of the river,
But how to get one, I cannot discover.'

'Dear Ellen, they seem beautiful indeed,
But of them, dear, take no heed;
Because they are on the other side,
Besides, the river is deep and wide.'

'Dear Edwin, as I doubt your love to be untrue,
I ask one favour now from you:
Go! fetch me a flower from across the river,
Which will prove you love me more than ever.'

'Dear Ellen! I will try and fetch you a flower
If it lies within my power
To prove that I am true to you,
And what more can your Edwin do?'

So he leap'd into the river wide,
And swam across to the other side,
To fetch a flower for his young bride,
Who watched him eagerly on the other side.

So he pluck'd a flower right merrily
Which seemed to fill his heart with glee,
That it would please his lovely bride;
But, alas! he never got to the other side.

For when he tried to swim across,
All power of his body he did loss,
But before he sank in the river wide,
He flung the flowers to his lovely bride.

And he cried, 'Oh, heaven! hard is my lot,
My dearest Ellen! Forget me not:
For I was ever true to you,
My dearest Ellen! I bid thee adieu!'

Then she wrung her hands in wild despair,
Until her cries did rend the air;
And she cried, 'Edwin, dear, hard is out lot,
But I'll name this flower Forget-me-not.

'And I'll remember thee while I live,
And to no other man my hand I'll give,
And I will place my affection on this little flower,
And it will solace me in a lonely hour.'

William Topaz McGonagall

The apple blossom exists to create fruit; when that comes the petal falls

Kabir (Indian philosopher 1398-1519)

High Places

2009-04-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

Frost

2009-04-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

Frost is the greatest artist in our clime
He paints in nature and describes in rime

Thomas Wood 1799-1845

Miscellaneous

2009-04-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Cottage Garden

2009-04-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need

Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you are going to live by a river, make friends with the crocodile

Indian Proverb

There's music in the sighing of a reed.
There's music in the gushingof a rill.
There's music in all things, if men had ears.
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.

Lord Byron

Bluebells

Men stopped giving her flowers.

In her garden, frosted and dried,

the winter plants were a lifetime's

spent bouquets.

She needed to give herself a present.

A bathroom with no mirrors,

white towels to wallow in,

a tub deep enough for remembering.

She had to find the perfect blue,

not iris, not midnight,

the sky's watchfulness

two minutes before dark.

In the paint shop

the young man listened carefully "

mixed lilac, cobalt, amethyst,

a practised conjuror.

They saw it spin into colour,

or he did, she watched

the blackness of his hair.

No grey, he must be half her age.

His eyes when he noticed her

were a quick green sea change.

I can tell he said, when you dream,

you dream of bluebells

Kate Rhodes

Winter Trees

2009-04-01T05:04:00.000-07:00

Winter Trees

The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.
On their blotter of fog the trees
Seem a botanical drawing.
Memories growing, ring on ring,
A series of weddings.

Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery,
Truer than women,
They seed so effortlessly!
Tasting the winds, that are footless,
Waist-deep in history.

Full of wings, otherworldliness.
In this, they are Ledas.
O mother of leaves and sweetness
Who are these pietas?
The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but easing nothing.

Sylvia Plath

Snow

2009-04-01T04:30:00.000-07:00

Dust of Snow

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued

Robert Frost

Ode to a Snowdrop

2009-04-01T03:37:00.000-07:00

The Snow-Drop

The snow-drop, Winter's timid child,
Awakes to life bedew'd with tears;
And flings around its fragrance mild,
And where no rival flowrets bloom,
Amidst the bare and chilling gloom,
A beauteous gem appears!

Poor flow'r! On thee the sunny beam
No touch of genial warmth bestows;
Except to thaw the icy stream
Whose little current purls along,
Thy fair and glossy charms among,
And whelms thee as it flows.

Where'er I find thee, gentle flow'r,
Thou still art sweet, and dear to me!
For I have known the cheerless hour,
Have seen the sun-beams cold and pale,
Have felt the chilling wint'ry gale,
And wept, and shrunk like thee!

Mary Robinson (1757 - 1800)

The Forge

2009-03-31T15:40:00.000-07:00

The Forge

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil's short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end square,
Set there immovable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, letaher-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To bea real iron out, to work the bellows.

Seamus Heaney

A Place of Stones

2009-03-31T15:02:00.000-07:00

Places of Spirit

2009-03-31T12:18:00.000-07:00

And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.
And he answered:
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and the injured say, ‘Beauty is kind and gentle.
‘Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.'
And the passionate say, ‘Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
‘Like the tempest she shakes the earth be- neath us and the sky above us.’

The tried and the weary say, ‘Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
‘Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.’

But the restless say. ‘We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
‘And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roar- ing of lions.’

At night the watchmen of the city say, ‘Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.
And at noontide the toilers and the way- farers say, ‘We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.’

In winter say the snow-bound, ‘She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.’
And in the summer heat the reapers say, ‘We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.'
All these things have you said of beauty, Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,

And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart inflamed and a soul en- chanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see through. you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Kahlil Gibran
1887-1931