Spring & the Clootie Tree

The tree is now in full leaf and looking plumply green.



It has proved popular with passers by, who have added their wishes to its boughs.









I love the silhouetted shadow of a leaf on this one:



There are wishes written on these spiralling ribbons:



Someone has also added this heart:



There's a beautiful wooden bird too, but it's hanging rather high and I'm not tall enough to get a decent photograph of it.





After a while, rain loosens the labels:







Each time I visit the tree, there's something new:







Heart-felt Four Quarterish thanks to everyone who's helped adorn the tree.

The Clootie Tree (& T. S. Eliot)

Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
into the silence

Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still



The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being


***from, Four Quartets, 'Burnt Norton'