Wenlock Edge Hawthorns push their little corny shuttlecocks,oaks are in their bronzeCuckoo pint, lords and ladies, or Jack-in-the-pulpit – these names are medieval nudges and winks about genitalia and sex. They belong to wild arum,a trick flower that jumps out of the earth with a bawdy country humour that mocks the righteous and revels instead in the impolite phwoar! of April. The cruellest month, according to T S Eliot, or possibly we’ll pay for these few glorious sunny days,but we’ll create the most of them until then.
It’s getting steamy in the hedgerow. For months, trees stood in companionable silence throughout a blowy winter that leaked into a dour early spring; now they fizz with a green static as buds pop and a million leaves inflate. Hawthorns push their little corny shuttlecocks, and oaks are in their bronze; blackthorn has been snowing for weeks,and the purple dangles of ash are out. Small birds, skirmishing through disputed branches, or travel in song between trees in the neutral air. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com