Nicky > Recent Status Updates

Augustus 23rd:

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Was that a Poppy and Alex reference?

Augustus 10th:

The Mockingbird's Song

Rain, people, rain!
The rain is all around us
It is going to come pouring down,
And the summer will be fair to see,
The mockingbird has said so.

- Tigua song (translated by John Comfort Fillmore)

Augustus 2nd:

Until I Saw The Sea

Until I saw the sea
I did not know
that wind
could wrinkle water so.

I never knew
that sun
could splinter a whole sea of blue.

Nor
did I know before
a sea breathes in and out
upon a shore.

- Lilian Moore

July 30th:

The Falling Star

I saw a star slide down the sky,
Blinding the north as it went by,
Too lovely to be bought or sold,
Too burning and too quick to hold,
Good only to make wishes on
And then forever to be gone.

- Sara Teasdale

And what the fuck is Patriotic French Toast? I'm not going to lie, I can admire the author's creativity with these things

What the fuck is a coconut pillow? I don't think I could sleep with a pillowcase that smells like coconut

July 23rd:

Lavenders Blue

Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly,
Lavender's green,
When I am king, dilly, dilly,
You shall be queen.

Call up your men, dilly, dilly,
Set them to work,
Some to the plough, dilly, dilly,
Some to thy cart.

Some to make hay, dilly, dilly,
Some to tresh corn,
Whilst you and I, dilly, dilly,
Keep ourselves warm.

- Anonymous

July 16th:

A Dragonfly

When the heat of the summer
Made drowsy the land,
A dragonfly came
And sat on my hand,
With its blue jointed body,
And wings like spun glass,
It lit on my fingers
As though they were grass.

- Eleanor Farjeon

“How can I explain it? It was like there was a part of me I had forgotten existed. It was the part that fell asleep on the couch as Dad watched TV, my foot against his, the murmur of the TV in the background, my eyes beginning to fall shut, knowing that I could fall asleep if I wanted to because he would carry me to bed. It was windy outside, but he would carry me.”

“I didn't really have anything to say about the forest, but even I could see that Big Spruce was a truly remarkable tree. Perhaps the biggest I had seen up here. It looked almost kind. I must confess that I experienced the tree like the equivalent of a person with warm eyes.”

“Somewhere out there, maybe there's a plant so delicious that we can't even grasp it, better than coffee or chocolate. We don't know yet! And even if we don't discover something entirely new, just the fact that you can take a seed, put it in the ground, and it becomes a plant — I can't understand how people don't think about that all the time.”

“They were all strange. They were all flawed. Together, they managed to survive. They each had something that benefited the others.”

July 11th:

What Happens To The Colours?

What happens to the colors
when night replaces day?
What turns the wrens to ravens,
the trees to shades of gray?

Who paints away the garden
when the sky’s a sea of ink?
Who robs the sleeping flowers
of their purple and their pink?

What makes the midnight clover
Quiver black upon the lawn?
What happens to the colors?
What brings them back at dawn?

- Jack Prelutsky

“Imagine when we're not here,” József said. “Then there's no one seeing these trees.”

“I considered how, in the past week, I had started thinking about the animals and the trees as though they had souls. Even the insects.”

“I could see the autumn in her eyes, flecks of brown against the green.”

July 4th:

Sea Cliff

Wave in wave
and green on rock
and white between
the splash and black
the crash and hiss
of the feathery fall,
the snap and shock
of the water wall
and the wall of rock:
after —
after the ebb-flow,
wet rock,
high —
high over the slapping green,
water sliding away
and the rock abiding,
new rock riding
out of spray.

A.J.M. Smith

“She thinks of all the protests she went to over the years in solidarity with the Irish, Chileans, the Polish, and all the protests that have happend throughout human history so that she can sit where she sits now.”

June 28th:

Insect

Inspect
an insect
and you'll see
how perfect
it can be.

Listen,
and hear
the tiny song
it sings,

and bits of rainbow
glisten
on its wings.

- Tony Mitton

June 26th:

Leaf Boats

Rain
down
the
drain
is a waterfall.

A leaf sails along
A twig starts to float.

I watch
as they bob
and they bounce
down
the
drain.

I see
the rain
drowning
each tiny, wet boat.

- Myra Cohn Livingston

“The sea is gay, you know.” Honestly? Yes!

There's currently a heat wave and this story takes place during a heat wave. I hate the heat, so let's make the most of it with some immersive reading!

“When had they felt the first few drops of rain that gave no real hint of the storm that was in its way?”

“Joe and Betty laughed at the memory and Frankie felt so lucky to have found these two kind people in this vast, unfamiliar city.”

June 12th:

The Snail

At sunset, when the night-dews fall,
Out of the ivy on the wall
With horns outstretched and pointed tail
Comes the grey and noiseless snail.
On ivy stems she clambers down,
Carrying her house of brown.
Safe in the dark, no greedy eye
Can her tender body spy,
While she herself, a hungry thief,
Searches out the freshest leaf.
She travels on as best she can
Like a toppling caravan.

- James Reeves

“Above all, I longed for the smell of the jasmine flowers that were outside every apartment building, though curiously I hardly noticed them while I was there. It seemed I could only ever smell them from thousands of miles away.”

Braving The Storm is definitely my favourite story so far!

May 27th:

Whispering Leaves

I am wondering
what it is
the leaves are whispering to me.
Which language they speak.
It doesn’t seem funny
but it might be.
It takes years
getting leaf ears
only there aren’t
many quiet days
to sit out and learn
leaf talk.
Leaves, I’m listening.

- Julie O'Callaghan