Flying thistledown

We had a short walk this evening after a busy day helping Daddy look after the littlies at our house while Mummy was at home packing their suitcases ready for setting off on holiday tomorrow.

Flying thistledown is a feature of John Clare’s poem, ‘Autumn’, but even now, in July, there was plenty of it on the Green, its gossamer strands floating around in the breeze. 

Autumn

The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still, 
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill, 
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot; 
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot. 

The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread, 
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead. 
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed, 
And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed. 

Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun, 
And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run; 
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; 
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there. 

John Clare