A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'S' -Snowdrops

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – wishing they were here.

S – Snowdrops, Shed, Spider, Sweet Pea, Snails

For Snowdrops are the harbingers of Spring,

A sort of link between dumb life and light

Freshness preserved amid all withering

Bloom in the midst of grey and frosts blight.

Pale Stars that gladden Nature’s night!

Snowdrops

When I was young, Dad’s garden shed

Had lots of things to turn one’s head.

Chisels, mallets, pots of nails,

Windscreen wipers, cricket bails.

\

Now I’m old, my garden shed

Is merely functional instead.

Garden Shed

 But one thing in there is just the same, even if of a younger generation

Shed Spider

 Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

That verse was written by the author of Charlotte’s Web but Charlotte would not have woven this:

 

Spider's Web

Some say that it was John Keats who gave this flower its name.

 

Sweet Pea

Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:

With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,

And taper fingers catching at all things,

To bind them all about with tiny rings

This is not the time of year to find a one of these inhabited:

 

Snail Shells

The frugal snail, with forecast of repose,

Carries his house with him where’er he goes;

Peeps out,, - and if there comes a shower of rain.

Retreats to his small domicile again.

This one on the nettles in warmer times is much more decorative.

Snail on nettle leaves

 Meanwhile Sam was quite prepared to stay outdoors and contemplate the snow

Sam (1997 - 2010)

  Poems:

• Harbingers of Spring – Caroline Elizabeth Norton
• Dad’s Garden Shed - Pete Golding
• The Spider’s Web – E B White
• I stood on tip-toe upon a little hill – John Keats
• The Housekeeper - Charles Lamb - snail