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......

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)