As the Corona virus deepens world-wide leaving us feeling isolated, depressed and frustrated at not being able to travel and explore the countryside as spring awakens;
Please enjoy these pictures of our beautiful Shropshire landscape taken by chairman & landscape photographer, Gordon Dickins. Gordon knows the county intimately and his pictures feature in his various books. He also leads his annual “Gordon’s Walk” a popular feature of the society’s annual summer school. It is still unclear whether summer School at Snailbeach will take place but we live in hope.
Mary Webb, with her intense affinity with nature drew great comfort from the natural world during her many bouts of illness from Graves’ Disease. Her nature essays, “The Spring of Joy” are very relevant to the situation in which we find ourselves today.
Perhaps this poem expresses what we all wish for at this time:
FREEDOM
When on the moss-green hill the wandering wind
Drowses, and lays his trumpet down,
When snow-fed waters gurgle, cold and brown,
And wintered birds creep from the stacks to find
Solace, while each bright eye begins to see
A visionary nest in every tree-
Let us away, out of the murky day
Of sullen towns, into the silver noise
Of woods where every bud has found her way Sunward, and every leaf has found a voice.
(Click on image to enlarge – All images copyright of Gordon Dickins thank you)
Monday, April 6, 2020
