Thoughts – Forgotten Fields

Image | 20 February 202120 February 2021 | Forgotten Fields

A sharp-eyed Steppe Buzzard (Buteo buteo) on a post and a bounding Steenbok (Raphicerus campestris) in the stubble. The nearby Steenbok Mountain (not in the photograph) is named after the latter, but only in recent times have I seen the species in the wild. Such sights are the source of my love for this region—and the stuff of my poetry.

13 December 2020 | Forgotten Fields

I continue to work on the “Little Evening Lily” poems as summer comes to South Africa. The lily in question has disappeared from the hillsides, but other wild flowers have taken its place. Among them is Cyanella hyacinthoides, its purple petal cuffs and golden stamen gloves earning it the common name Lady’s Hands. They add specks of colour to the waysides which grow ever paler with dry wild grass.

15 November 202015 November 2020 | Forgotten Fields

It is late spring in the Overberg (the southernmost region of South Africa) and whilst many waysides yet are in bloom¹, others are high with wild oats. In the early evening, they sway in the breeze as the sun makes gold of the stubble on the hills.

On Friday (13 November 2020), when the photograph below was taken, I happened upon a swath of Lobelia erinus, Ornithogalum strictum and even Micranthus tubulosus.

Rhebok Road, 13 November 2020. Copyright 2020 Forgotten Fields. All rights reserved.