03 Wednesday Apr 2019
Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart
I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree…
a tree that looks at God all day,
and lifts her leafy arms to pray…
Upon whose bosom snow has lain
who intimately lives with rain…
Poems are made by fools like me
but only God can make a tree.
Joyce Kilmer (1886-1914)
Posted by Candia | Filed under Environment, Nature, Personal, Photography, Poetry
30 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in art, Environment, Literature, Nature, Personal, Poetry
I chose the path less travelled and that made all the difference.
Acrylics by Candia Dixon-Stuart
21 Thursday Mar 2019
03 Sunday Mar 2019
Posted in Animals, art, Environment, Nature, Personal, Photography, Poetry
‘Nature Red in Tooth and Claw’ (Tennyson)
… three instances on our lawn
Photos and enhancements by Candia
01 Friday Feb 2019
Candlemas Bells White Purification Snow Piercers
Milk Flowers
Naked Maidens Good Christians Ice Lilies
Mary’s Tapers
February Fairmaids White tears Death Flowers
Eve’s Comforters
Morning Stars
Pentecost Flowers
Mary’s Teeth
Dewdrops
Shrove Tuesday Fools
Flowers of Hope
Dingle-Dangles
Snow Bells Eve’s Tears Mary’s Tears
Candlemas Lilies
c Photo and poem by Candia Dixon-Stuart
14 Monday Jan 2019
Posted in Arts, Poetry, Summer 2012, Writing
Tags
boteh, braes, Burns, Caledonia, cloths of Heaven, dragon's teeth, Ferguslie, Mount Olympus, Paisley, peesweeps, Robert Tannahill, Scottish poets, Skylarks, weaver poet, Woodside
The man who threaded words together, like
silk yarns in a Paisley shawl, showed respect
for his woven jacket and removed it,
carefully, with his silver watch, before
quietly lying down in a culvert,
no longer walking iambically.
A lass singing his lyrics ambled by;
muffled clacks from cottage shuttles faded.
The lava tide which slumbered in his soul
erupted and he saw Mount Olympus
and heard himself ask the gods for a bard
in Caledonia. They said, Not one,
but two are granted: Burns and your good self.
In fact, your verses, like sharp dragon’s teeth,
when sown in the ploughed minds of your peers,
will multiply the poets of your land.
Where the peesweeps and the shy skylarks soar
your resting place will be; no unmarked grave
will contain you: this tunnel’s mouth no stop
for such as your unlimping lines. And now
Paisley Buddy, you are transformed into
the waft of wild mountain thyme on the braes;
the arabesque of a bent cedar tree;
the elongated curve of a boteh,
such as you might have patterned on your loom,
or incorporated into a phrase
now echoing in the winds of Woodside,
or whispering through fogs in Ferguslie.
Tannahill, you wove the cloths of heaven
into Scotland’s literary fabric.
Photo by stephencdickson – Wikipedia
28 Wednesday Nov 2018
Posted in Architecture, Environment, History, Literature, Nature, Nostalgia, Personal, Photography, Poetry, Religion, Travel
Tags
Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart
Following in Wordsworth’s Footsteps
22 Thursday Nov 2018
Posted in art, Arts, Home, Horticulture, Literature, Nature, Personal, Photography, Poetry
Painting by Candia based on car park photo taken and published last Sunday.
Apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins!
20 Tuesday Nov 2018
Posted in Education, Nature, Photography, Poetry, Writing
Tags
Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart
(The lengthened shadow of a man
is History, said Emerson
who had not seen the silhouette
of Sweeney straddled in the sun).
From Sweeney Erect by T S Eliot
11 Sunday Nov 2018
Tags
Fry's Five Boys chocolate, Great Barrington, Great Rissington, Lest We Forget, quatrain, Remembrance Day, shrapnel, St John Baptist church, villanelle, Windrush, World War1
Photo by Candia Dixon- Stuart
A re-blog from 5/11/16
I visited the church today as I wanted to somehow commemorate five
brothers who were all killed in World War 1. Their youngest brother-
Percy Soul- died of meningitis after the war. He was the sixth son.
Apparently some villagers were annoyed that Mrs Soul received financial
‘compensation’ for her five sons’ deaths in service.
Unbelievable!
Later she moved to Great Barrington. She had three daughters who must
have been traumatised by the loss of their brothers.
I kept thinking of Fry’s Five Boys chocolate, for some reason and I checked
that it was in production when the boys were young. It was. I hope they
were able to enjoy this childish luxury as they ran around the fields,
scratching their names on the beams of a barn. Maybe not, if they were
relatively poor.
(Photo by Kim Traynor, 2013. Own work of enamel sign.)
It was freezing cold today. Inside there were wall monuments to others
who had died – centuries before. One girl had only been 19 when she
expired.
There was a little trapped wren inside and an aspiring organist who
arrived for a practice. I don’t know how he could have attempted to play
with cold hands!
Anyway, I went home and thought I’d try a villanelle. The rhymes are
limited, but there are 5 tercets- one for each brother, maybe. It ends with
a quatrain, where the rhyme feels a bit anti-climactic. But then, maybe it
suits the content… All ready for Remembrance Day. Let’s Not Forget.
The Lost Souls of Great Rissington
So, she wouldn’t stand for God Save The King,
though all five sons lay down for him and died.
For each life she pocketed a shilling.
The candle in her window kept burning,
watched by a girl who’d never be a bride.
And a mother and three sisters crying
was no salve for the sharpness of Death’s sting.
Over the cow-common, The Windrush sighed
and, in a drawer, telegrams were yellowing.
The candle guttered- a Soul was leaving.
The Roll up yonder couldn’t be denied.
No bugler registered this sibling.
In a village barn there is a carving-
names of hopeful lads which emphasised
desires for immortality. Living
in a peaceful hamlet? No, perishing-
even a twin had no one at his side.
While some entrenched neighbours were gossiping,
lethal as shrapnel and more exacting.
(St John the Baptist Church, Great Rissington
Photo by Jonathan Billinger, 2007)
