The earliest blossom in our garden – mirabelle, or wild cherry plum
After I sent in the manuscript for my first book of poetry – The Year’s Circle – a couple of months ago, I felt I needed a little creative winter – of rest and quiet and recovering energy. Lately, I’ve been finding things catch my attention again, and my pen and notebook have been coming out into the garden with me.
What follows is the closest to a finished poem that has emerged so far, and I thought I’d share it with you.
Last year, in the long hot, dry summer, we had an abundance of fruit. I thought this year the trees would be exhausted, and take a bit of a sabbatical too – it’s a healthy pattern….. but this spring, hot and dry as it has been, has been awash with blossom, and now, in the few days of rain we’ve had, the fruit is beginning to swell. It’s looking promising!
Blossom
The blossom opens – first mirabelle, then pear, apple, cherry, Iranian quince,
A white tide frothing and foaming over the garden, dazzling, loud with birdsong, petals opening like hungry beaks in nests,
All opening in turn, and all, in turn, shaken by the sudden shifts of wind – how hot it gusts now. So the petals fall, they tumble over faded daffodils, spent tulips.
And so it seems that all is lost, all that blossom, all that promise, all that beauty scattered on the wind. How the spring days scutter away.
And yet, I have come to know that all is not lost, even as the petals fall. They had their purpose. And that purpose – invisible at first, then the tiniest roundness of stem, of not yet – a held breath of green before summer’s ripening. And it will come, it will come, in its time.
I’m particularly pleased with these two small trees. They’re both a few years old now, and this is the first time they’ve started developing tiny fruit. The top picture is a pear, the bottom the Iranian quince – fragrant and delicious. When I see these small, new fruits, I’m reminded of that rich and ancient civilisation that has suffered and is suffering so much.
Here is another poem of resurrection – this one exploring the deep, unwitnessed moment of awakening. I’m intrigued by the stirring of seeds, the quiet power of life returning in Spring, and the imagery of spring filled my mind as I thought about Easter resurrection. My forthcoming book – The Year’s Circle, publisher Wild Goose – weaves together poems from the church seasons and the Earth’s seasons. In this piece, I hope, the presence of spring hums through.
I love the way Eastern Orthodox icons celebrate resurrection not as an event involving one alone, but as something including all those needing to be set free…. and gives us an insight into the pattern of life out of death, hope out of despair, new out of old.
Before first light
Out of the earth, the grave, the tomb, the darkness, life steps out into a shining spring dawn.
Out of the seed, the grain, the stone, the pip, life uncurls in a shimmer of new green.
We do not see the moment of breaking, of rising, it is hidden in the dark womb of the Earth.
But perhaps the ground shakes, a tremor in the deep, as the stone rolls away and death’s imperial seal is broken.
Then, out of a cave humming with clear morning light – no need of grave clothes, no need of husk and shell and stone and seal,
No need of the linen napkin for it is finished, and folded –
Out of the earth who tends her dead, there is a great greening, an awakening, a rising up. Life, and life, and life is stronger even than the grave, and love is stronger than death.
And look, and see, all things are being made new. Now, and now, and now.
Matthew 27:65-7, Mark 16:1-7, Luke 24:1-11, John 20:1-10
If you would like to use this poem, please do so, giving my name and this blog as reference.
The Proclamation of the Virgin Mary by Harald Slott-Moller
Hello blog readers! It’s been a while since posted. I’ve been working on my collection of Poetry for Wild Goose, Iona Publishing, and have now submitted it. It’s been a huge project, taking me just under a year, and I’ve loved immersing myself in weaving together a pattern of words and images. I’ll let you know when I have news of a publication date, but I know it’ll be a little while before they get to it. As a quick reminder, it’s called The Year’s Circle, and it follows the seasons of the year – celebrating the unfolding natural world and the seasons some churches follow in their prayers and readings.
As many celebrate the Annunciation on 25th March, I thought I’d share with you the poem I’ve written for the new book. A meditation on the angel’s visit to Mary. In the book, I’ve placed it in Advent, at the time when we often celebrate Mary. It certainly suits spring too, with the stirrings of new life we see all around. I hope it also reminds us that new beginnings are often hidden, small, and in unexpected places. It reminds us to look beyond the surface of Empire and power, and see what is happening elsewhere. Those things may be more important than we think.
Anunciation
I see her standing at the doorway of her home as the earth quickens at her feet, awakening.
A sudden shaft of light falls on her and she raises her face to feel it warm on her winter skin
For one joins her there, on the threshold, with great wings folded. An indication, if one were needed, that he comes from another place, is made of other matter.
And so this strange meeting begins at the threshold of Earth and Spirit, Word and Flesh, Eternity and youth. The shining one greets her with a song of God’s favour, of one-to-be-born of her – as she draws back a breath into her accustomed room, afraid,
Tests the future with a question. For this high favour will take her down a dark path, and a dangerous one, with sanction and scorn and incomprehension – her own too.
Yet, even so, she takes that tentative step forward, towards the light, gives her Yes to all this, to being a God-bearer, carrying the Anointed One in the closed blood-dark room of her womb.
And so begins this strange folding of the infinite, the Alpha and Omega, into a single cell within a slight girl, the most vulnerable of forms, this Mary, full of grace. What strange and troubling gifts are these to stir the brightening air.
Luke 1: 26-38
The Annunciation by Domenico Veneziano – Fitzwilliam Museum collection
Many paintings of this scene are strong on architecture. Artists, like Domenico Veneziano, were experimenting with their newly developed techniques of managing perspective. This one has a tiny pinprick in the centre, the vanishing point on which all lines converge. They ususally place Mary inside, or in some kind of indeterminate space like this one – a sheltered, nearly outdoor space. As I was meditating on the passage, I was struck by the image of thresholds, of liminal space, tentative and uncertain but open to possibility. In these early paintings, you often find the angel and Mary facing each other, like this, across the space, and then your eye is drawn to another line directly from the viewer to the background of the image. A window with a glimpse of a view, a door – in this case the door is closed. The closed door is a symbol of virginity, but here, I can’t help thinking of another collection of symbols – the closed off way back to the Garden of Eden, a way out of the confines of law and punishment, a door out into the freedom of a rich and green landscape. This line, front to back, out of the picture, forms a cross with the direction of gaze between the two figures, and that intrigues me. It does seem like an invitation to walk that path out towards the spring, towards new and abundant life.
I notice that many of you good readers are looking at my blog for poems on the themes of Holy Week, so here is a link that will help. I have a couple of new pieces for Easter Sunday, I’ll try to get those up here in the next week. Please do feel free to use my work, crediting me and this blog. It’s so good to know my work is being read in different parts of the world. Thank you for your support.
Thank you, good people, for the interest you’re taking in my Christmas picture book. I’ve been keeping an eye on availability, where I can, and it does seem to be selling well. It goes out of stock every now and again on Amazon, and they rustle up a few more copies.
Local bookshops have it in stock or to order. For local friends, Woodbridge Books have copies, and St Mary’s House too the last time I asked.
So, I’m rather bashfully encouraging you to order a copy if you were thinking of doing so, as they may well be in short supply for last minute shopping.
It’s available in two formats – a hardback and a slightly abridged board book for the very young. Both are illustrated by Lorna Hussey, and her artwork is enchanting and much loved by small people.
You can find out more about the book by searching on this blog, but this link will give you a good way in.
You can order it from your usual online places, such as….
I’m sharing this post again, September 2025 as part of the Season of Creation some Christian traditions are marking at this time. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to work on a collection of poems for Wild Goose, The Year’s Circle – and this poem is part of that work. I’ll be sharing more on that as we go along.
I hope you find this post a helpful starting point for contemplation.
Additional note, 24th September2023. I am delighted that this post has appeared at The Cottage, Diana Butler Bass’ rich and thought-provoking Substack, this morning. I’ve admired her work for many years, and it’s such an honour, and very exciting for me, to find myself in her company today, under Inspiration. It’s a profound exploration of envy and gratitude, and a reflection on the deep drivers of our climate and ecological crisis. It’s well worth reading and allowing it to do its inner work on us. You can do so here.
Original post, published 12th July 2021, emerging from lockdowns:
As we are beginning to venture out a little more, we thought we would pay a visit to Ely, and the vast indoor space of its ancient cathedral. They often have contemporary art there, which helps the old stones continue to sing, giving a new perspective on ancient truths. We knew that Gaia, an installation by Luke Jerram, was going to be there in July, and so we went and saw this beautiful, astonishing sight. The comparative emptiness of the cathedral space made it all the more powerful as it floated above us.
And as the space is vast, and it takes time to walk up to, around and beyond the piece, you do have time and space in which to allow the work to speak to you, to stir up responses, and to pray. I am sure that one of the intentions is to give us all an opportunity to experience something like “earthrise”, when the astronauts first saw the whole of the Earth from space, and how that shifted their perspective, and began to change the way all of us are able to see our home. The staggering, indescribable beauty of the whole called out my sense of awe, which sat uncomfortably alongside my awareness of the damage we are doing to our precious, unique home.
In the setting of the cathedral, as Gaia hangs in the nave under the painted ceiling which tells the long stretch of the Bible’s story, I found the language of repentance surprisingly, and helpfully, came to mind. Repentance both in our more familiar understanding of sorrow for wrongdoing, and desire to amend, and in the possibly more ancient meanings carried in the old texts, of returning home, and of undergoing a profound change of mind – a paradigm shift in the way you see.
Much of my writing celebrates the beauty of the natural world, how lovely, precious, and vulnerable it is. But sometimes, that love spills over into grief. So the old stones, and the old story, seemed illuminated by our current crisis, and, in turn, those ancient words seemed to express something necessary, and powerful, and, in the end, with the potential for hope.
You can listen to the poem here.
Gaia at Ely Cathedral
She seems to float, lit up with her own light, slowly turning, blue and blooming with clouds as we walk up, look up, small before her.
While above our steps, the familiar painted roof rolls on, telling its painted story, from the tree, and the garden, on towards this
fathomless shining beauty, the ‘all’ that was so very good in that beginning. Now as she turns we see how she hangs below the story’s last scenes – the gift of a beloved child held on his mother’s lap, held forward towards us, loved and given and giving, and the wounded golden king, who gives still.
And below, below hangs the whole shining Earth, dazzling, vast with sea, turning and flowering with clouds from the southern ice-shine, melting although we do not see her weep,
And the land, those small green swathes and swags, are dressed in white too, a veil of vapour, while the deserts spread brown and red above our eyes.
The lands are small, countries seem tales we tell. What is certain is this one great flow – ocean and ice and cloud – and the unseen winds that bear them through our blue, breathing air.
And the people stand beneath her, lit by ice, and hold up their hands as if to carry her, or hold her, or save her from falling.
How beautiful it is. How strange and wondrous that we should be creatures who live within so much living perfection.
And as she turns slowly under the child and the king, I wonder, what do those familiar words mean now, ‘the sins of the world’, as the stain of our reckless harm seeps through the blue and green, through all this living glory,
And is there any hope in our waking up to beauty with grief and loss, even as dust and ashes float across the sky, across us all, late as we are in our repenting?
And is there hope, hope that we might be granted this grace – time for amendment of life, to tend the garden with its leaves and fruit, shining and greening, to take part in the work of loving and healing, of restoration, of making all things new.
Looking at Gaia from behind the communion table brought to mind the words of repentance from that service, and I was aware of my sense of what “the sins of the world” might mean was creaking open a little wider.
Just in case some of you are very organised people who like to plan ahead for Christmas, you might like to know that a new hardback edition of this beautifully illustrated book is coming out on August 22nd.
It was my first book and I love it, and I’m thrilled it’s coming out again for a new audience. And if you have little ones in your life who are of an age for a board book, it’s coming out as one of those too – publication date for that is 26th September. That edition is slightly abridged, but with all the delightful pictures of woodland animals by the very talented Lorna https://www.instagram.com/lornahusseyillustrator/.
To those who follow this blog from the USA, the publishers were keen to say that the book will be available over the Atlantic, too.
Both can be pre-ordered now. Pre-orders do help with publicity and planning, so if you feel inclined, it would be a great encouragement. Meanwhile, the paperback version is still available.
If you are lucky enough to have a local bookshop, they can get them for you. Here’s a link to the publisher’s website for online orders. Of course, it’s also available in all the ususal places for ordering books.
Here’s how it begins…
And you can read more about it elsewhere on my blog, for example…
Thank you all for your support and encouragement. My mind has been full of the poems I’m weaving together for my poetry collection lately, and I’m aware I haven’t been posting on here quite as often as sometimes – I’ll try to keep remembering to do that! And next year, there’ll be lots to share!
I’m so delighted to be able to share with you that I’ve just popped a contract in the post for my first published collection of poetry. Some of you will know the publisher, Wild Goose of Iona, and they’ve been so kind and efficient in coming to an agreement about what we’d like to do together. It should be out next year.
We plan to call it The Year’s Circle, and I intend it as a collection to accompany you through the year. It will weave together poems drawn from Bible stories marking the seasons, such as upcoming Easter, with poems drawn from nature – so the two main strands of work you will find on this blog. I hope it will be good for your own reading and also sharing together with others in groups, churches and festivals. I know many of you already use the poems you find here in those ways.
The Celtic tradition has an idea of God’s two books – the Bible and Creation – and I’m intrigued by that idea and am looking forward to exploring what it might mean.
The collection will include some of the poems you’ll find here as well as new work. I intend to share progress with you as I go along – giving you tasters of the new poems, as well as some insight into the process.
I want to thank you all for being here, for your support and encouragement. It’s played a huge part in making this new venture possible, and I really look forward to including you in the process.
I’m blown away by this opportunity, it’s so good, and I’m really looking forward to getting going with drawing together something beautiful and nourishing in these difficult times. I really hope it helps.
This poem has arrived on the blog a little late. It became marooned in my notebook for a while, until I flicked through the pages and found it again. And although crowds of bees are no longer buzzing among the ivy, there are still a few, here and there.
I hope, though, that although this poem arose out of a particular time, it has something to say in other times, too. About stillness. About the restorative power of simply being, and paying attention. About finding our breath again. We all need that. We all need to feel that connection to the rest of the natural world (oh, how I wish we had better language for these things – bear with, it will emerge) which grounds us, and from which we can rise. For those reading this blog who need a little peace right now, I hope it helps. I’m thinking particularly of dear readers in America, where the election atmosphere seems turbulent. I wish you well over the next days and weeks.
The old hedgeline in front of our house has, in places, been overcome by ivy, which has formed its own structures and patterns of flowering and fruiting. Cutting some of it back to make space for other plants to grow, I was careful to leave the ivy flowers for the bees – which will become fruit for the birds in time. Accidentally, I created a little bower, where I put a chair and sat for a while. As I sat I gradually heard the road less and less, as my attention was taken up with the many bees who were enjoying the feast. And so, this poem emerged.
thebiologist.rsb.org
September. Bees. Ivy.
It is taking a while, this sitting in a carved out cave in the ivy. Just sitting, stilling, breathing. A bower of green leaves above, and above that blue sky, white clouds.
In time, the hum of bees, and their intricate woven patterns of flight, come to replace thoughts, become another form of thought. So too the birds – that wren shaking the leaves, and the pipping robin.
And this grey and green lacework of wild is all that separates me from the roar of the road – those black lines we make, always going somewhere….
And yet, here is a marvel. More bees than I have seen all year. A hum that soothes the soul. The darkness of butterflies.
These strands of green woven through the world – not enough, by no means enough –
But they shelter the bees, and me. A space for the soft and alive, breathing, green in spirit. We can be here, the bees and me. We can be, in this hollowed out hedge, in a cloud of lightfilled wings.
After some cold damp days, and flooding in some parts of the country, it’s warm and mild – about 6oC above recent average for this time of year. I find myself to be both delighted and unsettled by this lovely soft warmth. I’ve been able to get on with a bit of clearing and composting in patches, it feels like time this year, and making space to ensure the ivy doesn’t take over completely.
I’ve been able to sit in the sun and watch the rising and falling of insects. After the desolate summer of so little life on the wing, this has been such a joy. It is also an encouragement to keep a wild diversity of flowers in the garden, native and from further south, as the insects appear unexpectedly, at strange times. This autumn it feels time, having left it for a few years, to introduce some disturbance and give a chance for a variety of plants to grow. But apart from enjoying the welcome rays, I have also been aware of the wind and rains this extra warmth carries in its wake. So this poem is an exploration of this turbulence of feeling.
Mid October heat
The sun shines long and low, as warm as sudden laugher, a broadening smile blown in from the south and damp with oceans, I can almost smell the tropics on its strange soft breath.
What do you do with so much disquieting beauty – with a day like this, shining, wild and hot, damp with fever?
The low sun holds too much warmth. The green around me hums and sings with growth, rejoicing, even as the leaves of the trees fade a little, and tumble across the grass on this wild hot wind.
I am afraid. I look up at the strange flows of air and water above me, shifting and changing, heavy and thick, as the dragonflies rise still, hunting among gnats, and the bees hum in this late flowering – at last, the bees, and here a hummingbird moth, and red admirals, all drunk with sweetness in these late days. These late days.
Firstly, an apology if you don’t like wasps. I promise this is the only photo you’ll see here. If you can bear to persevere and read the poem, you’ll see how I’ve shiften a little in my view of them, and I hope that might help.
Picture – Gedling conservation trust – Common wasp
Thank you for bearing with me as I took a bit of a break from writing here over the summer. I do hope to share more with you as the days shorten and outside is a little less enticing.
There are notes in my notebook, ready for some further sharpening of my pencil. One of the things that’s really struck me this year has been the absence of insects here in the UK. Wet and cold earlier in the year, while not newsworthy compared to other weather events, seems to have stricken many of our insects and affected those birds and bats who feed off them. I am pleased to see the garden lighting up with wings, late as it is, and that has lifted my spirits. It’s been a strange, unsettling time, though, looking at the flowers that normally draw bees and butterflies, and finding them empty. I’ve wondered when to cut the meadows down, and left it late, so the last flowers might provide something for these missing friends.
Earlier in the year. A feast spread, but where are the guests?
The Butterfly Conservation trust have just published the results of their Citizen Science Survey, and found that the numbers are very low this year. You can read more about that here.
It’s also been strange to enjoy picnics without being troubled by wasps. I have been suprised to find I miss them, and worry about how they’re doing.
And so this morning, I saw a wasp. One of so few this year. And I wrote this.
Wasp
This morning, eating breakfast, slow, I heard a buzz and a tap against the light-streaming windows.
Buzz and tap, buzz and tap. I turned, saw a wasp on the window, and felt joy rising, and knew how strange it was to feel that joy at the sight of her – joy, and compassion, too, as she bumped and bumped against our shining window.
Oh, hello, I whispered, Don’t be afraid, you’ll be out in no time!
And, glass and paper in hand, I released her. She lingered a moment on the rim, gently waving her stinger up and down, then spread wings, flew into the clear September light, bright with late flowers.
And I laughed. Years ago, I would have flapped her away, swatted her even, afraid. And here I was, whispering to a wasp. Years ago, there would have been hundreds.
Not this one solitary marvel, striped, miniature perfection, buzzing and beautiful, in search now of the sweetness of a fallen apple, the ivy thick with bees.
Precious, so precious. Late as it is, I am learning how precious life is.
Edit: 11th November 2025
I was sent this film of the poem by Joseph Davidson. Do watch it, it’s very good.
Andrea Skevington 