For Marlene

Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind.....

Cowslips

Sometimes a song, or a poem, just creeps into the cranium, and can't find its way back out.  And this husky version of Pete Seeger's slightly sentimental Where have all the flowers gone? has done that to me on recent walks.  I think it was the smoky drift of The Blue Angel that caught me, and now I just can't get it out of my mind, especially when trampling the blooms around here.....

Red Campion

If I were a bard, or poet laureate or some such, I would pen some fancy verses about the colourful delights of hedgerows and fields, and how the scents of pretty petals might fume through my head creating dizzy heights of natural passion. But I must leave that to the professionals.

Poppy and Phacelia

Here, for example, is a modest burst from John Clare, worth at least a C+:

The sweet spring is come'ng

In beautifull sunshine

Thorns bud and wild flowers blooming

Daisey and Celadine

Somthing so sweet there is about the spring

Silence is music ere the birds will sing

And you cannot hold him back - he will go on:

The lane the narrow lane

With daisy beds beneath

You scarce can see the light again

Untill you reach the heath.....

And then there's Poppies in their thousands, enough to induce some stupor:

Everywhere there is a changing tapestry of light and colour:

  

The  feisty sprays of May flowers - Blackthorn, whether white:

Or flushed with pink:

Sainfoin mingles with the Ox-eye Daisies across the fields:

Not every day is bright; not everywhere is acrylic. Across the marsh the reeds mute the palette in watercolour mode: 

And then the grasses by the beach wave to the waters of the Wash in gentle tones: 

While up at Thornham Staithe the drifts of Common Sea Lavender are just beginning to tinge the tidal flats by the ancient posts:

There is such a wealth of life here, sponsored by fresh air and wild openness. Sweet Briar unfurls its petals along the way:

Honeysuckle seduces with its alluring perfume:

And, in the woods, despite its unhealthy reputation, I delight in finding a Yellow Azalea standing out from the much more common Pink Rhododendron:

Then at home, I have Clematis:

And Roses adorning the front of my house:

And so, in answer to the song, the flowers haven't all gone, even though there may not be the plethora of yore.  Some find their way into the church, inviting strangers to approach the font, basking in the light through the new glass doors:

While others are plundered by bees devoted to making honey to nourish their young in a hole in my wall:

The bees build in the crevices

Of loosening masonry, and there

The mother birds bring grubs and flies,

My wall is loosening; honey-bees,

Come build in the empty house of the stare.

W B Yeats

Meditations in Time of Civil War

Yes, poetry and song inform our lives, while nature provides for life.  Without flowers, and without bees, we would be nothing at all.  So we need to be grateful that, so far at least, not every flower has gone.....

wann wird man je verstehen?

So, to give that femme fatale, Marlene, the final word from Der Blaue Engel, with her deliciously husky tones:

Sich neu verlieben,

das wollte ich nie,

Was soll ich nun tun?

Kann nicht helfen mir.

Apparently (thank you Rosey) this is a (poor) retranslation of the Doris Day version of the song (which Marlene also sang in English)....

The 'proper' German version is:

Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß

Auf Liebe eingestellt.

Ich kann halt lieben nur

Und sonst gar nichts.

Which isn't the same....  So, take it as you wish.  What I have in my head is Marlene singing (as if she has just smoked a pack of Balkan Sobranie):

Falling in love again

Never wanted to

What am I to do?

I can't help it....

And there you go.

Let's just continue to play the game......