A few weeks ago, I learned that that the Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrian's Wall was felled, in what appears to have been an act of vandalism . It is a place I've not yet visited, a beauty I will never behold. Gerard Manley Hopkins' lament over " Binsey Poplars " comes to mind: "After-comers cannot guess the beauty been. / Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve / Strokes of havoc unselve / The sweet especial scene,/ Rural scene, a rural scene, /Sweet especial rural scene." In college, I wrote a poem about the color green that speaks of "wool that holds September's weathered green." Lion Brand makes a yarn called "forest heather" that is close to the color I envisage: green with flecks of gold and rust. I've knit a child's sweater and a fringed throw in this colorway. I will probably knit other pieces as time unwinds. I don't know if I will write another poem like this one. And now I will never see that tree, standing in its c...
Reflections from a peaceful place by Rebecca Newton Abbit