Peak Bluebells
Helen
07 May 2025
07 May 2025
It's that time of year again, and the woods are looking absolutely amazing, with carpets of blue under the trees, punctuated in places by the shy white of stitchwort. Where there is an expanse of bluebells, the trees appear to float above them, and the sun through the trees dapples splotches of light, in places shining through the blooms from behind.
Bluebells are an indicator of ancient woodland - land that has been constantly wooded for at least 400 years. Think that the paths through the trees have been trodden by previous villagers for four centuries!
Bluebells
I have seen bluebells in a wood, close blown:
fumed blue – like wood smoke, bluer grown.
And I have watched them move their bells to ring
blue changes in the joyous peals of Spring.
Blue changes, with a wistful note as though
the swift, blue Bird of Happiness skimmed low
to whisper in each upturned, listening ear
and then, with upward, curving sweep and dear
quick flash of blue wings, fled into the dim
dissolving azure of the world’s far rim;
his music lingering air-borne in the breeze
in echoes through blue shadows ’neath the trees.
We too can glimpse his swiftly passing flight,
we too must watch him sadly out of sight.
Nan Shaw(later,Northam)
1930s
