Things BeingVarious

I’ve been watching a blackbird foraging on the lawn. He keeps finding worms. There must be scores of them in the patch. He’s a colourful character, sheer black except for beady eyes and a lovely shining bill. The six polyanthus that Anne planted over the weekend provide a good foreground for the scene.

I’ve just received in the mail from friend Fiona a copy of Tim Upperton’s poems, A House On Fire. By coincidence the other day when I was reading Tim Jones’ blog I enjoyed reading an interview with Upperton. I look forward to reading the volume.

After a good previous day I had a bad day yesterday. My bowel played up. Utter embarrassment. And frustration. Poor Anne had to tidy up. I felt tottery and fragile. The several things I’d planned to do were not done. The sad part is that it effects my confidence. I wondered about putting this dirty linen on my blog but to be honest it is part and parcel of my present existence.

I’ve been looking at Louis McNeice’s poems. There are two I particularly like. The first is Snow. It is snowing outside but inside in front of the bay window is a huge bunch of roses. Here is the middle stanza.
'World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.'

The other poem is The Sunlight On the Garden. It’s about the inevitability of death. It begins:
'The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;'
And ends.
'But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.'

For much of yesterday I was a couch potato in front of the new TV. I watched the replay of the rugby between South Africa and Australia. Newlands looked spectacular on the larger screen. When our critics were baying for the blood of our coaches I had the heretical thought that probably the Springboks were the best team in the world at present. And so the match proved, the Aussies no better than the All Blacks when outplayed.

During an ad break I flipped channels, Even the trots in Invercargill looked spectacular on the wide screen.

After the news we caught the end of Wild Vet, a cheetah being introduced to Orana Park in Christchurch. Then Antiques Roadshow and then Earth. This time the topic was the atmosphere. Two intriguing pieces of information. One, the prevailing wind carries Sahara dust westwards. Much of it falls into the Atlantic Ocean but a considerable amount is precipitated onto the Amazon rainforest where it supplies nutrients.

Two, when the earth was formed the atmosphere was poisonous to life. After aeons bacteria in the ocean began to release oxygen. At first this combined with the iron atoms in the water to settle into the formations that now are iron ore. As the iron was all used up the oxygen began to increase in the atmosphere and thus the conditions for life were created. Marvellous.