#soothing
Across the frozen land, the flock of birds made its way through cottony clouds.
I made a bunch of paintings as part of the visual development for my Babayaga project. I like the idea of a land enshrouded with mystery, both quiet and intimidating. I like the idea of Babayaga exploring such a timeless and wild land with the Nameless Boy !
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Algy had observed that his little green dragon friend was becoming a wee bit agitated, and he guessed that it might be feeling somewhat bemused and lost in the wild west Highlands of Scotland, which no doubt seemed a strange and alien land to a native of faraway Patadragonia.
So the next morning, which was fine but exceedingly windy, Algy suggested that they explore the local area around his home. He knew a wee sheltered spot by the burn where he thought his little friend might feel rather more comfortable, as it reminded him of a stream in Patadragonia to which the dragon had taken him when they had first met, almost a year ago.
Although it was mid-March, the landscape was showing little sign of spring green as yet, but while the two friends rested among the still-bare, scrubby bushes on the steep banks of the burn, yellow catkins danced on a small hazelnut tree on the opposite side of the water, and Algy knew that soon everything would burst into fresh growth once again.
The little green dragon seemed calmer beside the water, although whether that was owing to the delightfully soporific trickling sound which was always guaranteed to soothe any anxious creature, or simply to the more congenial location, Algy could not tell. But to soothe it even further, he began to recite, in a soft fluffy voice, a long poem which could almost have been written in the Scottish Highlands, but which in fact was the work of an American known as “the Keats of Kentucky”:
Misty are the far-off hills
And misty are the near;
Purple hazes dimly lie
Veiling hill and field and sky,
Marshes where the hylas cry,
Like a myriad bills
Piping, ‘Spring is here!’
A redbird flits,
Then sings and sits
And calls to his mate,
'She is late! she is late!
How long, how long must the woodland wait
For its emerald plumes
And its jewelled blooms?
She is late! she is late!’
Along the stream,
A cloudy gleam,
The pussy-willows, tufted white,
Make of each tree a mighty light;
Pearl and silver and glimmering gray
They tassel the boughs of the willow way;
And as they swing they seem to say,
With mouths of bloom
And warm perfume:
'Awake! awake!
For young Spring’s sake,
O little brown bees in hive and brake!
Awake! awake!
[Algy is reciting the first part of the long poem Catkins by the 19th century American poet Madison Julius Cawein.]
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