Another poem by Mary Webb; this one sprung to mind one January afternoon, as I walked home from the Goods Shed Farmers’ Market, passing this well-laden hawthorn tree. A few more cold days, and the blackbirds – see below – will have stripped it.
A Hawthorn Berry
How sweet a thought, How strange a deed, To house such glory in a seed-- A berry, shining rufously, Like scarlet coral in the sea! A berry, rounder than a ring, So round, it harbours everything; So red, that all the blood of men Could never paint it so again. And, as I hold it in my hand A fragrance steals across the land: Rich, on the wintry heaven, I see A white, immortal hawthorn-tree.
Let’s stay with Mary Webb today. Here is the blackbird; he is too preoccupied to sing, with that annoying human standing right next to his lunch. Mrs Blackbird was hidden behind the ivy in the first picture.
Mary Webb once more takes us from the things we hardly see for familiarity to the immortal, eternal. Infinity in a grain – a seed – of hawthorn. A hawthorn seed planted in her time would be ablaze with haws now, if not stripped by the birds, and then creamy white in May, the original Mayflower. This very bush is special to me. Walking by one day after an operation, I realised my sense of smell had returned, an unexpected gift from surgery elsewhere in my head. I try to remember in passing, and be consciously grateful.
agnellusmirror 