Springtime photo Gallery ….
Springtime 2017 Colour returns to the Woodlands Kilkenny Nigel Borrington 
Early Spring in Ireland Nature Photography Nigel Borrington 
Hoverfly feeding Wildlife photogrpahy Nigel Borrington 
Spring Rabbit
Mountain bluebells, Poem by Avetis Isahakian
Mountain bluebells, Poem by Avetis Isahakian
Armenian Legends and Poems [1916]
Mountain bluebells, weep with me,
And flowers in coloured crowds;
Weep, nightingale, on yonder tree,
Cool winds dropped from the clouds.
All dark around the earth and sky,
All lonely here I mourn.
My love is gone,–light of my eye;
I sob and weep forlorn.
Alas, no more he cares for me–
He left me unconsoled;
He pierced my heart, then cruelly
Left me in pain untold.
Ye mountain bluebells, weep with me,
And flowers in coloured crowds;
Weep, nightingale, on yonder tree,–
Cool winds dropped from the clouds.
Springtime poetry , After the Winter By Claude McKay
After the Winter
By Claude McKay
Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning’s white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
And we will seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.
The Cycle Of Seasons – Poem by ann rta’s
Spring, days lengthening and warming slowly
green shoots daffodils and gambolling lambs.
Summer, sunny and hot lazing in deckchairs
rambling roses blooming strawberries and cream.
Autumn, wind blustering with nights drawing in
dying leaves changing to red/gold before falling
Winter, cold and bringing frosts, snow, ice,
dark brown trees stark and bare animals hibernate.
Seasons whirling in a revolving cycle,
marking the endless passage of time.
I was once;
the Spring child
the Summer teenager
the Autumn adult,
now, I am approaching
the Winter of old age.
Oh, that I could go back and return
like the Seasons
to the Spring again.
Irish Landscape Photography, Windgap County Kilkenny – in Black and white
Images of Ireland
Black and white Landscapes
Windgap
County Kilkenny
Serenity Lake By Charleigh Huston
Serenity Lake
Charleigh Huston Dec 2015
‘Twas my spring of youth in that lot
That now haunts my mind by that spot
Of which I could not love less –
Wonderful loneliness,
Of the lake’s Serenity gown,
With nature circled ’round.
But when Death hath reached its grasp
Upon Serenity’s water – poured into his flask,
The sadistic sagacious wind went by
Murmuring the funeral cry –
Then – I finally awake –
To the terrors of Serenity Lake.
Yet I persist that it was not fright!
Simply Death’s delight –
Fueled by the Void of Sorrow,
Pierced by Serenity’s arrow –
No! – This Love I must define!
The trip to the lake, of thee and thine.
O! – Death’s grasp laid in that voracious wave,
Enticing Serenity to be my eternal grave,
Upon that very fatal spot –
Where the two children rot.
For no soul shall ever make,
A Heaven out of Serenity Lake.
The first signs of Spring – BlackThorn
Blackthorn is the 12th letter of the Gaelic tree alphabet, representing P, yet another controversial letter. There was no P in the Gaelic alphabet until recently, so some tree has had to stand in. As Blackthorn was in the original alphabet (for St, as its old Gaelic name is Straiph, but St is no longer considered a letter in its own right). As Blackthorn’s latin name is Prunus spinosa, it fits the bill. Its modern Gaelic name is Draighneag or Airne (sloe) or Sgitheach dubh (black hawthorn).
Snippets of Lore
Blackthorn is the 12th letter of the Gaelic tree alphabet representing P, controversially, as there was no P in the alphabet until recently
For my explanation of why Blackthorn stands for P see http://mandyhaggith.worldforests.org/index.asp?pageid=359149
Blackthorn’s latin name is Prunus spinosa. In modern Gaelic, draighneag (pierce), airne (sloe) or sgitheach dubh (black hawthorn).
Blackthorn’s fruit is called sloe. They are very high in Vitamin C.
To get a taste of the bitterness of sloes, nowhere better to start than Vicki Feaver. http://www.spl.org.uk/best-poems_2006/feaver.htm
Too much sloe gin may be too much of a good thing.
Sloe gin infused with pennyroyal and valerian was the original ‘Mother’s Ruin’.
Blackthorn is the ancestor of all plum trees.
Sloe stones have been found in Neolithic cairns and crannogs.
The Ice Man was carrying a sloe, presumably to eat.
Sloes are better flavored if frosted, or dried then rehydrated.
Sloe jelly is best made with apples.
Sloes are good for the bladder, kidneys, stomach and lung complaints.
Sloe juice and bark gives indelible ink.
Sloes gives a pinky purple dye, and blackthorn bark produces a red or orange dye.
Blackthorn bark can be used to reduce fever.
Use blackthorn leaves for tea. It’s good for tonsils and larynx.
Have another sloe gin (by Seamus Heaney) http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/IrelandGenWeb/2003-11/1069876152
Responding to Heaney, Tom Rawling’s Sloe Gin: http://www.xen19.dial.pipex.com/dec_2.htm
And another moody blackthorn poem, this one by Louis McKee, coming into blossom. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-blackthorn/
Blackthorn produces beautiful snow white blossoms early and before the leaves come.
Blackthorn’s leafless stems, in flower, evoke a place between death and life.
Blackthorn blossom is unlucky indoors (maybe for the same reason as hawthorn?)
A tisane of blackthorn blossom ‘purges to the depths’.
Rough weather in March is called a Blackthorn Winter.
Blackthorn is the sister of Hawthorn: Blackthorn governs Nov-April, Hawthorn governs May-Oct.
Blackthorn wood is hard and good for walking sticks and weapons. Best walking sticks are blackthorn entwined by honeysuckle.
Irish sheleilaigh sticks are made with blackthorn wood.
Blackthorn trees give good shelter for birds to nest in. It makes excellent hedges.
Blackthorn is supposed to never exceed 13 feet.
Proverb: Better the bramble than the blackthorn, but better the blackthorn than the devil.
Blackthorn helps you see beyond negatives to opportunity.
A hero fleeing from giants needs a magical blackthorn twig which will sprout into a thicket!
Blackthorns were believed to spring from the blood of Norse invaders.
A blackthorn thorn tipped with poison is a subtle weapon known as ‘a pin of slumber’.
Blackthorn is associated with Sleeping Beauty – after pricking her finger, the castle was thorn-bound until love came.
Witches stick blackthorns into wax effigies of their enemies.
Blackthorn was used for pyres when burning witches.
Blackthorn was believed to have been used for Christ’s Crown of Thorns, hence unlucky.
For fertile fields, make, wear, then burn a blackthorn crown and spread its ash.
Blackthorn represents the inevitability of death, and of dark secrets.
Evil fairy-folk stole babies – and hid them in blackthorn bushes.
‘Many sloes, many cold toes’ – presage of bad winter ahead.
The First flowers of Spring, The Primrose a Poem Thomas Carew
Springtime flowers 2018
Primrose
Nigel Borrington
The Primrose
Thomas Carew
Ask me why I send you here
The firstling of the infant year;
Ask me why I send to you
This primrose all bepearled with dew:
I straight will whisper in your ears,
The sweets of love are washed with tears.
Ask me why this flower doth show
So yellow, green, and sickly too;
Ask me why the stalk is weak
And bending, yet it doth not break:
I must tell you, these discover
What doubts and fears are in a lover.
Nigel Borrington 
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