Pied Beauty
Gerard Manly Hopkins
I have just finished reading “Landmarks” by Robert MacFarlane. It is a requiem to lost words. The author has tried to slow the slipping away of words particularly words for nature by listing them in his book. The belief is that once you lose a word, you lose a part of the earth and its inherent experience.
The poet Gerard Manly Hopkins is mentioned in “Landmarks” as a person, who through his poetry, preserves words, creates new words and uses common words in uncommon ways. “Freckled” is a favourite. Perhaps not new but in a new combination or sense.
I remember my father telling me that when I was 5 years old I had described sunlight on a lake as “spreckled.” I too find language limiting and need to invent words or find other uses for the words we have. Maybe this is why I love poetry. It’s inventive.
All my examples of couple-colour come from my garden. It is my way of living this poem. It is my landscape, my landmarks “plotted and pieced….. and pied.”
Poetry praised.