Tag Archive: poetry


Norfolk in Poetry: February Promise

Filed under: Historic landscapes, Norfolk in poetry- Jack Kett, Wildlife and Nature — Leave a comment
18/02/2014

chaffinch‘In sheltered spots the colours now return.

Brave crocuses and aconites of gold

Form brilliant carpets on the dreary floor

Of winter borders. In the woods unfold

The spikes of cuckoo pint, now showing more

And brighter green than hardy fronds of fern.

There’s colour, too, where tits and finches fly,

Attired already for the affairs of spring.

And, welcome even more, on oak branch high

As daylight fades a thrush begins to sing.

The hazel catkins shiver in the breeze,

In yellow clouds pale pollen drifts away.

A thousand starlings pass above the trees,

And silvered silk the willow wands display.’

John (Jack) Kett

from ‘A Late Lark Singing’ (Minerva Press1997)

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Norfolk in Poetry: January Snow

Filed under: Norfolk in poetry- Jack Kett — Leave a comment
27/01/2014

IMG_5170

OK, I’m not serious. This was how Old School Garden looked on 16th January last year. Day time temperatures were hovering around zero degrees Celsius, compared to the ‘balmy’ level of 5 today.

Still, wintry showers were forecast for today (though they haven’t yet materialised), so I thought with Janaury days fast running out, this was my best shot at publishing the latest poetry offering from Jack Kett’s anthology ‘A Late Lark Singing’. So, all I can suggest is to try and think back a year, maybe use the photo for inspiration, or perhaps more likely, just listen to Jack’s description of a snowy Norfolk January day.

‘Silently came the snow before the dawn,

And in the countryside new beauty’s born.

We see around us on this glittering morn

New wonders now revealed. Small footprints show

where birds and tiny, hungry creatures go;

Gulls, white against the sky, come swooping low,

And turn against the dazzling field to grey.

The sunbeams dancing on the snow convey

A brightness even to the sombre pines,

And where a leaf breaks through the snow it shines

With brilliance that is usually unseen

At times when all around is brown or green.

Deep winter’s here, but though chill winds may blow

They bring to us the glory of the snow.’

John (Jack) Kett

from ‘A Late Lark Singing’ (Minerva Press, 1997)

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