Nicky > Recent Status Updates

“Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet? ”

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

October 9th:

Wind

Now has the wind a sound
Made out of rain;
A misty, broken secretness,
That drenches road and pane.
It drips and drips; a hush
Falls on the town;
Like golden clods and old tree shakes
Its apples down.

- Lizette Woodworth Reese

October 8th:

Cliché

They came between dusk blue
and the watery moon's rising,
arrows of geese
that made the sky a river
flecked with froth.

Their calling silvered the air,
reflected in glass and puddles,
made twilight a cliché.

But one small boy
who knew geese only from a picture book
watched,
gasped,
wondered.

- Alisson Chrisholm

October 5th:

Conkers

When chestnuts are hanging
Above the school yard,
They are little green sea-mines
Spiky and hard.

But when they fall bursting
And all the boys race,
Each shines like a jewel
In a satin case.

- Clive Sansom

October 4th (world animal day):

Hog In a Wood

Big black hog in a wood
On a truffle hunt.
Head stuck deep in the earth —
Grunt, snort, grunt.

Oh a hog's in heaven when is tongue
Is wrapped around a truffle.
His tail uncurls and his hog hearth
Performs a soft-shoe shuffle.

Big black hog in a wood
Chewing muddy truffles.
Great snout nosing them out —
Sniff, snuff, snuffles.

- Adrian Mitchell

October 1st:

The Leaves Are Green

The leaves are green
The nuts are brown,
They hang so high
They will not come down.

Leave them alone
Till frosty weather,
Then they will all
Come down together.

- Anonymous

September 30th:

New Sights

I like to see a new thing I know
Has not been seen before,
What's why I cut my apple through
To look into the core

It's nice to think, though many an eye
Has seen the ruddy skin,
Mine is the very first to spy
The five brown pips within.

- Anonymous

September 28th:

Poemology

an apple a day
is 365 apples

a poem a day
is 365 poems
most years

any doctor will tell you
it is easier to eat an apple
than to make a poem

it is also easier
to eat a poem
than to make an apple
but only
just.

but here
is what you do
to keep the doctor
out of it:

publish a poem
on your appletree

have an apple
in your next book

- Anselm Hollo

September 22nd (my dad's birthday):

Auguries of Innocence (Extract)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

September 21st:

Windsong

I am the seed
that grew the tree
that gave the wood
to make the page
to fill the book
with poetry.

- Judith Nicholls

September 18th:

Seven For a Secret

Seven black birds in a tree,
Count them and see what they be.
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy;
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret
That's never been told.

- Anonymous

Stevie, you should know that it wasn't actually a door Rose was laying on at the end of Titanic, but that it was a piece of wood paneling

September 13th:

The Ferns

High, high in the branches
the seawinds plunge and roar.
A storm is moving westward,
but here on the forest floor
the ferns have captured stillness.
A green sea growth they are.

The ferns lie underwater
in a light of the forest’s green.
Their motion is like stillness,
as if water shifts between
and a great storm quivers
through fathoms of green.

- Gene Baro

At the end of September the sixth book in this series will come out, so I will spend the month of September re-reading the first five books. I've only read the prologue, but I'm already loving it!

September 1st:

To a Red Kite

Fling
yourself
upon the sky.

Take the string
you need.
Ride high

high
above the park.
Tug and buck
and lark
with the wind.

Touch a cloud,
red kite.
Follow the wild geese
in their flight.

- Lilian Moore

“She never believed in higher powers, because if there were higher powers then they took her father and mother, they took her voice, they left her at Merilence with nothing but a book. But there are lower powers, stranger ones, and there in the dark, behind the door, she prays to them.”

The illustrations and journal pages add so much to this book! I'm having such a good time reading this

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.”