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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Tag Archives: robin

My Blackbird

18 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Candia in art, Environment, Home, Nature, Personal, Photography

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Tags

beech hedge, Birdsong, blackbird, robin

blackbird 8
blackbird 9
Blackbird 1
blackbird 2
blackbird 5
blackbird 6
blackbird 7

He is singing right now in our Beech hedge and has seen off the

robin – for now….

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Image

My Garden Friend

10 Monday Dec 2018

Tags

festive image, garden birds, robin

IMG_0037

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Posted by Candia | Filed under Environment, Home, Nature, Personal, Photography

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Cheeky Chappie

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by Candia in Environment, Literature, Nature, Nostalgia, Personal, Photography, Relationships, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Ben Weatherstaff, Frances Hodgson Burnett, manners, robin, territory, The Secret Garden

IMG_0038

This little fellow was very annoyed that I should invade ‘his’ territory

this afternoon.  I had to remind him that it was my garden too.

Maybe he should take lessons in decorous behaviour from any descendants

of Ben Weatherstaff’s amiable companion.  (See The Secret Garden by

Frances Hodgson Burnett.)

 

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A Sestina for Spideog Mhuire

18 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Candia in Animals, Family, Music, mythology, Nature, Poetry, Religion, Writing

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Brittany, Eucharist, Flight to Egypt, Gloria, Holy Family, miracle, Mozart, Nativity, robin, Sherborne Missal, Spatzenmasse, spideog Mhuire, St Kentigern, St Mungo, St Servanus

Spideog Mhuire means robin of (Virgin) Mary

 

(image from The Sherborne Missal, c1400)

 

At Eucharist a robin, with its song,

drowns out the Gloria and brings to life

a sermon.  The Spatzenmesse, miracle

of Mozart, somehow cannot bless

the congregation more than this small bird,

who had significance in the lives of saints.

 

Kentigern and Servanus were the saints:

the former (Mungo) restored a robin’s song,

after his peers tortured and killed the bird.

The bishop had mourned its loss of life.

Some other holy men had cause to bless

robins.  In Brittany, a miracle

 

occurred when monks needed a miracle;

a robin brought a sheaf of wheat to saints,

who’d ploughed, hoping that Nature would then bless

them with a harvest.  They’d brought no seed. Song

reminded them there would have been no life,

nor church for them, by Autumn, save for that bird.

 

At the Nativity, one little bird

shielded the Christ child, in a miracle,

preserving from immolation His life

and singeing its own breast.  Honoured by saints

for perching on the cross, singing its song,

removing thorns, thus being pierced.  We bless

 

it for blushing in deference.  To bless

The Holy Family’s footsteps, this tiny bird

covered their tracks, filling their Flight with song:

their salvation a kind of miracle.

And when it warbles with the choir, saints

sense affirmation of eternal life.

 

God’s holy men-the robin and wren-give life

to small beginnings; prosper and bless;

cheer in dark days of winter all the saints,

past and present, and the fall of one bird

is known to the Divine.  The miracle

of creation imbues its warbling song.

 

May the miracle of this bird’s song,

chirruping in garden, or in hallowed space, bless

and give life to all dejected saints.

 

 

 

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My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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