I pass by this marker most mornings. A coppice is
A small wood or thicket consisting of underwood and small trees grown for the purpose of periodical cutting, according to the OED, something I've somehow neglected to look up until now, content I guess just with the sound of the word. And every morning I think:
I leant upon a coppice gate, from Thomas Hardy's The Darkling Thrush, which ends
That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
And then I think of my dad, Hugh Affleck, and giving him a cassette tape of Seamus Heaney reading this poem that I copied from a battered Vancouver Public Library copy years ago. This all happens in about 0.5 seconds as I pass by.
PS: here it is from last year in full bloom.
Victoria Day is the traditional planting day but it's still seeming a bit too chilly for little plants. This morning I set out to tackle about a dozen giant thistles that had made themselves at home in my garden during my absence. Some of them required 3 different tools to dislodge and were as vicious as rabid badgers (of which, I should add, I have no first-hand knowledge). Still, I had to admire their tenacity and their prickly elegance and be grateful I was contending only with thistles not rabid badgers.
Richard Serra's installation at the Grand Palais
Detail from the Grand Palais
St. Chapelle
Sacre Coeur, Montmartre
Belgium has a rich tradition of bande dessinee and throughout Brussels there are many characters painted on the side of the buildings. I liked this one particularly. These flowers at the Place du Petit Sablon were some of the loveliest I'd seen.
