By Ullswater

The light was fading as I headed back after taking stuff through to Oxfam. A day of sorting ... always a bit of a minefield and never seem to get far.

A Poem of Trees - Mary Oliver
Can You Imagine?
For example, what the trees do
not only in lightening storms
or the watery dark of a summer’s night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now – whenever
we’re not looking. Surely you can’t imagine
they don’t dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade – surely you can’t imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can’t imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.

This was taken just below Waterfoot. Bizarrely as I was trying to find out a bit more about the big house there I came across the Whitehaven News and accidentally found out that Tiny was 17 when he was wounded in battle in June 1916. It all made for very salutary  and upsetting reading.