Skylark Memories

Working hard again at the front bed. A moment leaning on our shovels and my gardening pal heard a lark high above us. It is an amazing sound. We swapped memories--
hers--my mother and I walking across the fields in Belgium to get to a recreation area
mine--hearing an actual lark on Spittal Hill here in Scotland and understanding what Shelley was trying to say. Then as now I thought it would be better to send 16 year olds out on a hill to listen to the world more than sitting in a classroom listening to someone else's idea of it. I still have a low tolerance of English romantic poets, but in fairness to my English teacher of all those years ago and my new garden friend, I offer the last two stanzas of Shelley's Ode:

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.