Pluvialis has been blogging up a storm since her return from the 'Stans. See in particular the one on stars here and this one on migration.
Who but a poet could describe thrushes thus?
"Two species of thrushes visit Britain in winter. The smaller of the two is the redwing, a jaguar-like, shy, and slightly deranged thrush with devilish eyestripes and a burst of dried-blood rouge on each side. Redwings skulk in hedges and disappear with a thin seeeeep alarm call, and they slink about in the periphery of your vision when they first arrive."
And:
"...my favourite arctic thrushes are fieldfares. They're big, bold, patterned and arch. Alternatively, they're grey, fierce and wolfish.They are splendid. You have to use the plural, when talking of fieldfares. They arrive in rattling flocks like gusts of spray or hail. They are noisy when they fly, and their chak-chak-chak call is like someone launching a handful of pebbles on an iced-over pond surface. Chack chack chack: echoey, dopplery, cold."
Better than Ted Hughes!
And this line:
"I love them also because they carry the arctic around them like coats."
Just the merest taste, believe me. I read her with astonished delight and a bit of envy. If I were still teaching nature writing her texts would be required reading.
2 comments:
Oh, I agree with you so much about Pluvialis, Steve! I haven't been able to post a comment to her blog, but it's such wonderful writing that I can't wait to run my eyes down the sentences -- I just want to rake the words off the screen with my fingers and cram them into my head so I have them sooner! The images, the raw sensory knowledge behind them, the literacy and sensibility -- Oh, I just get dizzy.
Prairie Mary
Oh my gosh Mary, agreed!
I have to read it over and over.
I especially love the word DOPPLERY.
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