healingwords: poetry for the soul

The creamy richness of these mushrooms reminded me of dumplings rising together in a steamy stew. I am impressed by the number of fungi experts and lovers who identify, cook and enjoy the bounty from the woods and meadows. Here the 'seta' is the prized autumn fruit, its location kept secret, the large earthy terracotta gills brushed carefully free of soil, sizzled with a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt.  © 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

The Vall de Pop is a grape growing area, the grape harvest taken in trailers to the the Cooperativa in Xalo where various wines are produced, the most famous being the sweet dessert wine 'Mistela'.  At this time of year the vines are losing their leaves and yesterday I walked through fields lit by the late afternoon sun, the light shining through the leaves in glorious colour. Soon the leaves will be gone and the vineyards rowed with curling dwarf trunks.  © 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

I came across another abandoned field of trees in the Vall de Ebo, the ground covered with bright red fruit, the last, worm ridden apples still clinging to the branches. I fell in the deep pitted earth, holes covered with fallen leaves rooted by the wandering boar.  © 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

Signs of Autumn as wild boar snuffle the earth, eating acorns and burying others to grow as new shiny shoots in Spring. This vibrant green is this year's growth, the ground under the holm oak trees covered with tiny, spiky holly oak trees.  © 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

It is far too early to be thinking of Christmas but these bright berries reminded me of lights on the tree, winding round the branches. The campo is changing a little more each day, leaves starting to wither, colours turning, berries ripening, swifts flying ready to leave for Africa.  © 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

A poem inspired by Autumn, here at home in Spain and my nostalgia for northern woods.  AT HOME IN THE WOODS Threading through dark pines, resin fresh on air chilled in mountain’s shade, misting incense of crushed thyme; gaze past tree line to stoned terraces, hillside striped with Levante greens, sage silvered, olive bearing, verdant beryl of ripening ‘mandarinas’ Christmas teasing, yellow flushed fennel sway on blowsy stretched stems, gnomed vines bruised like fallen grapes fermenting on red clay. Living sense of Spanish presence while loosened mind wanders back to cool Northern woods; jewelled moss slipping, squelch of mushrooms hidden in leaf fall freeing spores of fungal decay, air ripe with cyclical change as damp earth exudes richness of summer humus, decomposing, nurturing woodland as it sleeps; think of lost ones who loved these woods, permeating subsoil, resting deep under oak trees. © 2018 Jacqu...