"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair."
--
Chinese Proverb
You have no way of knowing this, but I have a collection of art in my sewing room that depicts women with bird's nests in their hair. I'm not quite sure how it started, but I'll just blame it all on etsy! Ha ha. One of these days I will give you a tour of my bird nest ladies. My sewing room, as well as my house, is in disarray since I am in the process of getting ready to move - I don't know when or where yet, but I do know that it will be soon, and that I have to purge a lot of stuff!
Poetry, art and photography help calm me down. So do the daffodils that have begun blooming in my yard, and the sights and sounds of the birds who are scouting their nesting sites and looking for nesting materials. Don't forget to put out your dryer lint, pet hair, bits of yarn and string, and other soft nesting materials for the birds now. They need it for their little ones!
As I have said in the past, two of my favorite places are Sanibel and Captiva Islands in Florida. The great lady Lucy Maude Montgomery spent a great deal of reflective time there, and I feel somewhat of a kinship with her, even though we have lived during different centuries. Here is a wonderful poem that she wrote about Spring, and another poem from a lovely fellow you may have heard of.
Spring Song
Hark, I hear a Robin calling!
List, the wind is from the South!
And the orchard-bloom is falling
Sweet as kisses on the mouth.
In the dreamy vale of beeches
Fair and faint is woven mist,
And the river's orient reaches
Are the palest amethyst.
Every limpid brook is singing
Of the lure of April days;
Every piney glen is ringing
With the maddest roundelays.
Come and let us seek together
Springtime lore of daffodils,
Giving to the golden weather
Greeting on the sun-warm hills.
Ours shall be the moonrise stealing
Through the birches ivory white;
Ours shall be the mystic healing
Of the velvet-footed night.
Ours shall be the gypsy winding
Of the path with violets blue,
Ours at last the wizard finding
Of the land where dreams come true.
--
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Perhaps the most famous "Daffodils" poem:
Daffodils
I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance;
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not be gay,
In such jocund company;
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
--
William Wordsworth (1804)
A gorgeous daffodil bud from my garden.
Another sign of Spring -- lichens on my trees.
I will be back soon. Until then, be well and happy.
Don't let the birds nest in your hair!
Robin
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