Spring Equinox Greetings from The Hill of the Poets

This is the tipping point, not just in the calendar, but on social media, which is now full of (very much needed) posts about nesting birds, returning migrants, new flowers. Easter, which is usually my springtime marker, is as late as it gets this year, and we have already hit the equinox, the time of the year where there is more light than dark, and the sharp frosts are giving way to a couple of very warm days. Blackbirds, robins and blue tits are nesting in the ivy hung hawthorn trees on the bank of the burn behind the house, and the sparrows and starlings are back in force after their winter absence.
We have violets getting their second wind, and in full rich flower, wild daffodils and primroses, wallflowers which started early for reasons I don’t really understand, but the first bees like them. We bought some cowslips last year, and this year I’ve been able to divide them so we have six plants below the apple tree, just ready to flower. The fruit bushes and the early shrubs and small trees are just at the stage botanists call ‘mouse ear’ when leaves are just out, but very small.
I have started sowing, and so far I have three kinds of tomato, including the Scottish yellow, which germinated excellently and looks to be very sturdy, two kinds of sweet peas, clary sage and basil. In a big step forwards I’ve taken down the insulation on the greenhouse, figuring that more light is the key thing just now. As it had reached 45℃ yesterday, I don’t think keeping warm is a problem just now!

Today it is raining, after a long dry spell, and all the new green looks as if it has had a polish - buds on gooseberry and blackcurrant, the grass on the lawn, three shades brighter now, the first shoots of perennials coming through. I lost a fuschia, and at least one lavender, but the herbs in the magical border are sturdy and are coming through fast. I’ve moved a hypericum into a shady, damp corner, so I can put up a trellis for sweet peas, and the work of clearing and mulching is under way. I’ve pruned honeysuckle and clematis, and tied in the wild rose along the fence, which is already showing signs of being very vigorous.
Dandelions are coming through very strongly and I am seriously wondering, for the first time, if I have enough violet flowers to harvest. I think I will be cautious, however, and be content with making violet leaf oil, which is good for dry skin. There are cleavers and chickweed coming through, and the first sticks of rhubarb - I think spring is telling me to focus on the cleansing herbs just now, and the first fresh tastes of salads.

Last weekend I went to StAnza where I tried out one of the poems from the new book. It went down well, and this, as well as some of the interesting discussions about poetry in translation, and the sharing of work, has made me tweak the emphasis of the new book a little. I have got interested in the figure of Mercury, the trickster, but also the god of transformation, alchemy, boundaries and communication. I think there might be a sequence here, and a couple of poems about the herbs of mercury, which grow so well in this garden. And I might have to change the title perhaps to Ausculta, (listen attentively). The weird, feral and fay creatures will stay, but maybe not dominate so much. And the ghost poems have gone, because I’m cooking a time/story-telling/archaeology project for the next book, possibly in collaboration with a neighbour, oral historian Dr Janice Ross, which I’m trying not to get too excited about too soon.
I did a very exciting reading in Cambuslang Library, which went so well we are thinking of getting more poets involved for National Poetry Day in October. And there is a possibility I may be in Stirling in May, with Neuro-Central, a charity supporting people with neurological conditions such as Parkinsons, Multiple Sclerosis and Myasthenia. Also, I am very pleased to say that a poem of mine, Things That Are Sleeping, will be in Pushing Out the Boat, in the next issue.
Have I read anything at all since the last newsletter? TS Eliot’s Four Quartets and Ash Wednesday, but I was disappointed that they no longer seem to me to be as profound as I once thought, perhaps because I have since read St John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich myself, and they speak much more directly to me. I have started a few books, and not finished them. I feel like a squirrel that hoarded all the acorns and now can’t find them!

I may be revisting the blog on Burnedthumb after all, as I find I miss the short form responses to life. I’m trying not to over-commit, though, especially as I finish the book, so there will have to be some good planning first. The next actual newsletter should be May Day or thereabouts. In the meantime I hope you all have a sunny and burgeoning spring, and happy festivals - whichever you celebrate!