Spring journeys – March 2016
As part of my blog series The Long Spring - ten years on, I recall a walk around a favourite town, and the common wayside flowers of central Spain.
On 20 March 2016 – the equinox – I was in Oropesa, an ancient hilltop town in Toledo provice, Castilla-La Mancha. Here is an excerpt from that day’s entry in The Long Spring.
Two great spotted cuckoos are chasing noisily through a rocky patch of scrub where a track junctions with the road. The track is tractor-rutted and puddled from rain, and runs between a ploughed field to my right and grassy fallow to my left. Its weedy edges are smoky with fumitory, and in the stony cloister of a long-derelict field wall there are five spikes of sawfly orchid. Four of them have their petals half-furled like newly emerged butterflies; one is in full splendour. Its design combines insect-mimicry and art deco style: the upper three petals are a lilac shade of pink, its lower lip fringed greenish yellow with a crimson-black centre. Around its mouth is a narrow ring of blue and white.
…There is an olive grove on my left, which, with the waning light, is counter-shaded, darkening leaf-clusters contrasting with a carpet of catchfly that gives off an illusory pink glow. I pull a leaf from a wild leek, which has a flavour like a garden leek suffused with garlic.
A few days later I was at Aiguamolls de l’Empordà in Catalunya, following a poetry trail. I spent three days there where the words of Maria Àngels Anglada (1920-1999) perfectly described the landscape and wildlife of this great wetland on the Costa Brava. Anglada joined locals in campaigning to protect the Aiguamolls from the spread of mass tourism. The symbolism of her formerly oppressed Catalan language being used to highlight the oppressive march of foreign-owned hotel resorts into Catalunya’s natural heritage struck a political chord at the right moment. The Aiguamolls became a Parc Natural in 1985.
Always remember this light / gravid with birds almost all invisible / save for a goldfinch that swings / from the highest branch of the tallest cypress
When I returned to the UK I contacted the poet’s daughters and sister who gave permission and help as I translated some of her lines for The Long Spring. Most of her poetry is unavailable in English, but I’d like to see if I can change that…
The 2nd edition of The Long Spring is now out! Get your copy here.
