Poetry, Life and Beauty

 A. E. Housman's famous poem about the cherry tree and mortality from A Shropshire Lad has always resonated strongly with me. Each year I marvel at the loveliness of the wild flowers and each year I wonder how many more springs I will view this loveliness. There is nothing morbid about this, just a greater and greater appreciation and awe for the perfection of the moment. Here is the poem in which Housman talks about twenty of his expected life expectation of seventy years having gone. By his measure I am minus one! Definitely no complaints from me! My time has run out so I am so lucky to see the miracle of spring again.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

Pond Life

I love the light and reflections dancing on water and sometimes try to capture the feeling, the essence of it rather than a photographic type of painting.

This pond is a metaphor for life, look more closely and there is more to be seen and experienced, above and below the water. The surface has pond skaters skimming around, plant life and the kiss of wind. Below there are all manner of things. tadpoles, larvae, newts and little fish.

Like life there is so much more than than what is on the surface.

My painting is 60cm X 50cm and is acrylic on canvas. Please contact me for a price if interested.
www.chrisgauntartist.co.uk

The Path

The Path

Who is leading who?

If that is the right expression

What unfolds for the adult

As the child points

Inspired and aflame 

Unfiltered by knowledge

And today's science

So often upturned

Scattered and rearranged

Like autumn leaves

Moved by fickle winds

I do know this

Beauty and truth

Pulse always on this path

Within yet beyond

The artists brush

And every one of our footfalls

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Painting by Chris Gaunt. Poem by Julian Gaunt.

Ancient Oak.The Election and Social Media

This Oak is nearly 1000 years old and stands in the grounds of the Fairhaven Trust in South Walsham, Norfolk. It was a sapling at the time of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It made me reflect on the relative unimportance of the recent general election which has produced such an outpouring of hatred on social media from those who didn't like the result.. My question to those posting these sort of views as my friends, is what do you really want? Are you seriously suggesting as one post did that we have a revolution to overthrow the government?  Do you really think everybody who voted for a party you didn't approve of is a vile Nazi scumbag completely devoid of any human kindness? Because that is the implication of some posts.The British public donate more to charity and disaster relief per head than most other countries and I bet that includes folk of all political persuasions. Now that we have a multi party system some form of proportional representation may be a fairer way BUT according to one P. R. system the result may not have pleased everybody either. It seems the Conservatives and Labour would have fewer seats but still be the two largest parties but UKIP would have had 88 seats! The Liberal Democrats would have more seats than the SNP who would have 25. The Greens also would have more. Winston Churchill said Democracy is a lousy system of government but it is the best we have. I suppose that may be questionable but what else? A dictatorship? All this I was reflecting on as I viewed that magnificent Oak in the tranquility of the countryside. Hopefully this tree will still be alive when all the protagonists in this election and myself, will, after strutting our stuff and rounding our little lives with a sleep, be of no consequence.  So my friends, wait five years and you will probably get the government you like but meanwhile if we prefer Democracy we must accept the will of the ballot box. I leave you with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. " I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too greater burden to bear."