At last, Dublin latitudes are benefitting from sunlight. We see that in a bed of Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ planted for over a decade under a canopy of trees in the front. Some passers-by have told me they are siberian bugloss ‘Jack Frost’. I’ve also had conversations with passing architects and keen gardeners who don’t know its name. They paused to admire the silver-frosted, heart-shaped leaves detailed by veins and edges of jade green. We have come to think that the perennial appearance of sprays of small, bright blue flowers are the confirmation that spring has arrived. Confusingly, after a decade of reproduction and expansion, some of the frost is disappearing. Warming?Dehybridising? Unevolving? Regressing?
This image is from my Garden chapbook available at FabHappy and elsewhere.
Yesterday I was indoors shooting a president lit by window sunbeams. Today, I was two metres to the right, prone in the sun shooting a car registration plate.
Today’s photography has been a welcome displacement activity from the trauma of an ecological devastation that I completely misunderstood. I should be writing of the pleasure we experienced in meeting up with grandchildren during an easement of pandemic travel restrictions. But my awakening to the scale of the destruction of the oceans has emplaced in me such feelings of guilt and impotence that expressions of joy seem inappropriate.
You really should watch Seaspiracy. It’s on Netflix now and there’s a trailer here.
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