The ice and snow have melted here in the Netherlands and the world has reverted to its proper colour (glorious green - at least that's the colour I would paint it!). We can breathe again and stroll about looking at the melting ice on the canals and hunting for signs of spring.
It's a time for observation again, no longer cooped up within four walls and feeling stodgy and stifled, wrapped up and pinched against winter's harshness. Time to re-invent my much-loved outdoor life and for a spot of poetry - two poems which reflect the Dutch landscape in different ways, good and bad, which many of us will remember long after we have returned to our home countries, wherever they may be:
Heron’s Reach
Hunched, poised,
By the water’s edge,
A sentry on duty,
Awaiting the changing of the guard.
Not resting, but silent,
Ever watchful,
Surveying his territory
As the sun falls beneath the reeds.
A breeze springs up,
Ruffling his head feathers.
Head swivels,
Beak pointing this way and that.
Softly, softly,
Creeping forward,
No sharp movements,
Then a sudden plunge.
This one I wrote after a trip back home. The rhyme seemed to fit the neat, regimented landscape:
Thinking in straight lines
I’m back again in Toytown
Where the roads are made with bricks,
Where the trees all grow in straight lines
And other clever tricks.
The water flows in channels;
The river’s bends are gone.
The croaking heron, honking geese
Drown out the chaffinch song.
Beneath the neat lace curtains
The plants all stand in twos,
Purple orchids in square pots
Make up for country views.
What happened to the softness?
Where are those fine green hills?
The mountain’s purple grandeur
Replaced by twirling mills.
No time to sit and ponder
On how life ought to be.
The holiday is over;
Too wasteful just to ‘be’.
I’m back again in Toytown
Where thoughts run in straight lines,
Where black and white, not shades of grey,
Regale my weary mind.
Marken, Netherlands
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