Let it be.....

 Just a closer walk with thee.....

It's neither spring, nor summer, and I have been laid up, but thankfully the storm has passed, and I take myself to Ken Hill.  These woods, near my house, are where I used to walk with Amanda, almost every Sunday, through all the seasons, until she could go no more.  A squirrel watches me from a mighty oak, and I am reminded that, for reasons now lost, my pet name for Amanda was Squirrel.....

Just a closer walk with Thee,

Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,

Daily walking close to Thee,

Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

No, I haven't got religion, but Amanda did, and sometimes I wish I could believe......

Perhaps it's enough that I have the world of nature around me.  A beautiful mesh of cool green beech leaves above me, a pyramid of beautiful, though invasive, Rhododendron over there:

Each flower a marvel of design and colour:

The Foxgloves display with the same palette in the shadows:

Attracting busy bees to their hidden stores of nectar:

Or radiating glory when struck by patchy sunlight filtering through the trees:

Amanda walks with me in my heart, chuckling with delight at the Yellow Azalea (Rhododendron luteum):

I sniff the wild Honeysuckle, smiling at my memories:

And admire the glowing Elderflowers, thinking she might like some cordial:

Through this world of toil and snares,

If I falter, Lord, who cares?

Who with me my burden shares?

None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.

Then I pick up a high-pitched piping call, like a dentist's ultrasonic scaler, and search the trunks around me, eventually picking out a tiny Treecreeper scuttling up the bark:

There aren't many birds around, or so it seems.  The wind is strong, whooshing through the leaves and branches, and birdsong is something of a rarity now.  Pigeons thrash away through the trees when disturbed.  Jackdaws call to each other above their nesting sites:

A parent Robin threatens me as I photograph one of its young:

I hear the shrill trilling of Wrens in the undergrowth, but often they are quick to take cover when I approach, though I catch this little one waiting for food:

High in the crowns I can just make out Blue Tits picking up caterpillars, but they are too far above me to picture.  An incautious Jay, however, obligingly perches with his lunch on a branch within sight:

I walk along the path by the line of beeches:

I am weak, but Thou art strong;

Jesus, keep me from all wrong;

I’ll be satisfied as long

As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.

And then follow the hill to the carved seat where Amanda used to love to sit looking out through the trees towards the Wash. The dappling sunlight plays tricks with my vision and for a moment I can imagine her there,  an evanescent angel....

On my way home, a flurry of feathers lies across the mud on the track and I see the crimson breast of a freshly killed Pigeon, the hapless prey of a Sparrow Hawk, perhaps, a reminder that all life comes to an end, one way or another [without death there is no life.....]:

When my feeble life is o’er,

Time for me will be no more;

Guide me gently, safely o’er

To Thy kingdom shore, to Thy shore.

Just a closer walk with Thee,

Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,

Daily walking close to Thee,

Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

Evanescent Angel:

Thank you for walking with me today......

****

Listen to Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson:

https://youtu.be/OOKaircCiGI?list=RDOOKaircCiGI

****

Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

 When will they ever learn?

Sag' mir, wo die Blumen sind

Marlene Dietrich knew a thing or two....  Her schnapps and tobacco voice seduced generations of young things, what with her blue angels and her touches of evil....  But her version of Where have all the flowers gone? rises with my sap in the springtime.  Pace Pete Seeger, but you didn't quite have the allure....

So I have been out photographing the spring.  Which was very late this year, what with drought and frost and global warming, and Brexit, Covid, etc (when will you stop complaining?  Ed)

In fact, I had almost given up hope (Yeah? Who's hopeful these days? Ed)

But I have a question.  Not, Where have all the flowers gone?

But...  Where will all the flowers go?

Red Soldier Beetle

That is to say.... We take all this wonder for granted, but without pestilential insects most of our natural floral displays will simply be a thingy of the past....

So, it is the balance of this and that - the Yin and Yang of light and dark, cold and warmth - that makes for a world in which we have oxygen to breathe and food to eat.....

Hoverfly

Without bees, and their allies all the other pollinating insects, we would not have bread to eat, nor fruit for dessert....

Coccinella septempunctata

So, in many ways, a bunch of flowers is not just a pretty bouquet.  It is manna.  It is heaven.

Common Blue Damselfly

Flies may be unwanted pesky irritants.  But without them this world will become desiccated and barren.  Never mind the G7 or the COP26, just look how clean your windscreen has become over the last few years.....

Yes, many of the flowers we love can only reappear if there are bugs to have sex with them (that might be biologically inaccurate, but allow me some poetic licence)

Hoverfly

So, to return to my titular theme.  Where will all the flowers go?  

Thick-legged flower beetle

Perhaps young girls may pick them.....

White tailed bumble bee

And perhaps those gentle creatures may succumb to the charms of young men.....

White tailed bumble bee

Who then go off to war with life, and death.....

To meet some inevitably testosterone-fuelled death....

But in the meantime, farmers spray their fields, and big Pharma recommends this and that, while the supermarkets demand perfection and instant produce....

So the little things get ignored,

And the delicate colours of our environment begin to shrink and fade....

And we, the super beings, the great manipulators, will no longer be in the pink....

All our olympic achievements, our euro champions, our teslas, our test and trace, and our 'sovereignty' will become as dust...

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains.

For me, Where the bee sucks, there suck I....

Garden Bumble Bee

Spring, however late, is a wonderful reminder of how busy and exciting life can be.  Life may only last for days, but it must go on.  Flowers spray across the paths and then, before you know it, the mast, the berries, the sloes, the cherries, are food for passing strangers.  It goes so fast.  And then you wonder where it went.  And then, as things progress, you wonder why it is different this year.  And then next year we will say it was better in the past.  And then we tell our children how it was, when the fields were full of flowers and the butterflies were such a nuisance.  

And they won't believe us.

And it will be our fault.

Hoverfly

Where have all the flowers gone?

Where will all the flowers go?

Hoverfly

Gone to graveyards, every one....

Berlin Memorial Plaque

"Where have all the flowers gone"
Marlene Dietrich
27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992
Actress and Singer
She was one of the few German actresses that attained international significance.
Despite tempting offers by the Nazi regime, she emigrated to the USA and became an American citizen.
In 2002, the city of Berlin posthumously made her an honorary citizen.

"I am, thank God, a Berliner."

Funded by the GASAG Berlin Gasworks Corporation.

Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt

(I wish)