72 micro-seasons 23

Janey...

Taraloka dawn

meadows awash with sunlight,

silence in birdsong

Kit...

Sliver of evening sun cracks the pewter sky - 

damp liquorice slug creeps into the spotlight - 

shoals of young leaves - oak sycamore birch - shimmy and sway - 

the fickle wind plays -

Beverley...

The garden borders are exploding with self-seeded Nigella and Toad Flax; roses are falling over themselves along the fences.

Helen...

Unwelcome mare’s tail thrusts its bristly snouts through soil. Primeval strangler squatting on black webs.

Jane...

Grounded after the storms, the rivers too full and fast for swimming.

Taraloka haikus May 2024

25 May

Taraloka dawn

meadows awash with sunlight,

silence in birdsong

26 May

The stillness of rain

woke me in the early hours,

tender the roses

27 May

Taraloka Reflection 

Three-coloured teardrops

floating in the window-pane,

prayer-flags fluttering 

72 micro-seasons 22

22...

Janey...

Komorebi - the play of sunlight through leaves...oh, the dappled- darling light and shade of life.

Kit...

It's just what the dry, dust-caked cobbles wanted - a good dose of straight clean rain. But it needs to stop now ...

Helen...

Verges like lace petticoats - miles and miles of frothing, bobbing cowparsley - green below and beyond.

Beverley...

The joyful twittering of Linnets has joined the choir of songs that rises up from the fields and hedgerows.

Jane...

The thin blue haze of faded bluebells comes earlier these days.

72 micro-seasons 21

Janey...

And, quite suddenly, sunshine, and the sweet scent of old roses

Helen...

Sycamores - blousy in ball gowns - looking every inch the way six- year-olds draw trees.

Beverley...

A spattering of scarlet. Poppies in the margins of the wheat fields.

Kit...

A claret peony carefully unfolds - my Lady Dedlock - plotting to stun society

Jane...

La passagiata - green dresses, white frills - and the peony's slash of lipstick red turns heads.

72 micro-seasons 20

Janey...

Basking in the unexpected warmth, buttercups under the chin

Jane...

Hazy green hills let the dawn fall how it will.

Beverley...

The huge chestnuts are full of leaf and weighted with countless blossoms; along the path white campion is arriving.

Helen...

Young beech leaves spill lime-green light on the road - nearby a hillock is brimming with bluebells.

Kit...

Dandelion clocks shed time as we cycle the banks of the Danube, salbei-blue with wild sage

72 micro-seasons...19

Janey...

High above our heads the copper beech twirls and swirls its verdigris skirts in the breeze

Kit...

In the neat spring green of the Altmuhtal, giant snails cross our damp path, a fleet of small purposeful tugboats.

Beverley...

Hedgerows are full of the froth of hawthorn and the chattering of unseen birds: robins, wrens and greenfinches, blue tits, blackbirds and thrush.

Helen...

Young leaves glint and wink - shining raindrops have gathered - pale light gleaming through.

Jane...

Beech and bluebell: a cathedral of new green and indigo.

72 micro-seasons 18

Janey...

Away from the breeze, hawthorn blossoms in the sheltering hedgerows

Beverley...

The last April sky has let fall all thought of cloud while the elder offers up its first sweet-scented palms.

Jane...

The south wind blew cold last night but change is in the air.

Helen...

Warm winds at last - Green alkanet opens her dozens of dark blue eyes and stares, amazed, at Spring.

Kit...

Early Eden, a gather of pink-hosed greylag natter on shallow rocks - mayfly, hovering low, bring in the new month