Sleeping Dragon

Tuesday, 8th December 2003
Richard Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary

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A fiery sun rises over the bare trees of the wood.	By the pond, grass blades glisten like spiky teeth.
Frost-dusted sage leaves hang like scaly armour.	Foxgloves stud the cold, hard ground in frosted starbursts.
A cold bench overlooks the icy pond.	Hogweed seedheads, coated in rime, look like the outspread tentacles of a fossil sea lily.
Frostbound: the clothes post by the pond.	Shine out, fair sun, with all your heat, Show all your thousand-coloured light! Black Winter freezes to his seat; The grey wolf howls he does so bite; Crook't Age on three knees creeps the street; The boneless fish close quaking lies And eats for cold his aching feet; The stars in icicles arise: Shine out, and make this winter night Our beauty's Spring, Our Prince of Light! -- anonymous, 16th century. This poem appears in The Masque of the Twelve Months, George Chapman (1559?-1634)

As the sun rises, the valley seems to be awakening, breathing misty vapour - as if an earth dragon is stirring in its wintry lair.

Inbox Inspirations

It was some recent e-mails that inspired me to go down the garden with my digital camera:

Snowfall

From Mattituck, Long Island, Hazel Kahn sends me this photograph to let me know what it's like in her back garden today. 'The blizzard has passed,' she says, 'and things have returned to normal with surprising speed.'

Rosellas

Reminding us that it isn't winter everywhere, Barbara Regent had these rosella parakeets the washing line the other day in her garden in New South Wales.

Texan Sunrise

Rheba Kramer Mitchell's backyard has a panorama on a Texan scale: 'I have had the early morning wake-ups this week; got up around 5 AM this morning and watched this unfold as I checked my email.'

Red Dragon

It's the fantasy art of Liza S., who left a message in my guestbook yesterday, who gets me thinking about sleeping dragons. This is her Dragon in a Bottle.

Her fantasy menegarie k also includes unicorns and this howling grey wolf.

Related Links

Leafages - Hazel Kahan uses pressed leaves and vines in her mixed media art.

Landscape and Nature Studies - illustration and interpretation from Barbara Regent in New South Wales.

The Lair Log - Rheba Kramer Mitchell's artwork - including digital paintings and fractals - and encounters with the wildlife on a Texas Wildscape ranch.

richard@willowisland.co.uk

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