Thursday, 5 November 2020

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Brevity; the idea that less is more. It's a notion I swear by. If you can say it in an eight line poem, then do so. With apologies to Tolstoy, but I'm sure War and Peace could have been condensed into two sides of A4.
Like Bowie, Robert Frost's command of the language was such that he could write a poem as powerful as Nothing Gold Can Stay with room to spare. Autumn - and life - encapsulated in a mere 40 words. It's one of my favourite pieces of prose.

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay.

27 October 2020

There is a beautiful beech tree outside my front door. It must be 200 years old if it's a day. Although I've only lived in this house a little over three years, I feel as if I've known this tree all my life.
I took a photograph of it at the end of October with a fish eye lens. I then tweeted it and said that if I was to take another photograph of it 24 hours later it would look different again. It did. And it has done every day since. These two photos are separated by just over a week - the collage below is a daily record. (I know what I'm like - I can see me continuing to photograph this tree every day.)

5 November 2020


  1. Replies
    1. It looks so beautiful at this time of the year. As I said in the post, I think I'll continue to photograph it - I'd love to have 365 pictures all mounted in one large frame...

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    1. Thank you, CC. Photographing this tree has now become part of my daily routine.

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  3. Gorgeous all round!
    Oh yes, do please photograph it every day and I'd love it if you were to share some of the most differing images - when it's bare in Winter, when it's in new Spring leaf, etc.
    Nature is art.

    1. I may just do that. You're so right btw, nature = art.

  4. That's an amazing set of images and so clever to use the fish eye as it suits the shape of the tree. I love the colours at this time of year - On our daily walk I noticed for the first time there are more leaves on the ground than on the trees. They'll soon be bare.

    1. Thank you, Alyson; November comes and November goes.

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