Wide open spaces

There are some places that at first glance are flat and uninteresting, but as you get nearer and begin to observe you can feel that the more you look the more you see. You can get that feeling looking at the night sky. First of all you see just darkness, then one star, then a few more until you can see the vast millions. You might see an aeroplane pass through a cloud, and if you are in an area where there is no light pollution you can see the Milky Way. The same feeling you can have looking at the Fens in the east of England. the more you look you will see the birds, the water creatures, the midges , the reeds , the different types of grasses, the variety of colours. The same feeling again in the lagoon around Venice and the Camargue in France. Wide open spaces, fragile land that is at one with the sea, like there is an unspoken agreement that the land can stay there if it behaves itself, if it gives a home to the wide variety of fauna and flora to be found there..

Here is a poem by William Morris that seems to express easily what we might all feel when looking at a landscape we are fond of. I hope you like it.


Speak nought, move not, but listen, the sky is full of gold.
No ripple on the river, no stir in field or fold,
All gleams but nought doth glisten, but the far-off
unseen sea.

Forget days past, heart broken, put all memory by!
No grief on the green hillside, no pity in the sky,
Joy that may not be spoken fills mead and flower and
tree.