The Augustinian Farmer to His Son in Wartime - a poem

 Few things are more daunting than a piece of blank paper, or a virtual piece of blank paper, waiting to be filled with words about something...and yet, the mind, for all it's thinkings, steadfastly refuses to cooperate and remains as blank as the paper it is set to fill.

Oh well. I have managed to make my first few lines of my first post all about not having anything about which to post. I suppose I can only improve from here.

My goal in starting this blog is to have a place to put back into the world some of the good things I have taken from it. The reason I have titled it 'Dappled Things' is in part an homage to my friend Kelly over at Landscape Plotted and Pieced and in part a tribute to Hopkins' beautiful poem 'Pied Beauty,' which expresses so exactly, and so much better than I ever could, the delight and wonder I feel when I behold creation in all its dappled glory. It is also in part a confession as I do not have the stick-to-itiveness to make this blog about any one thing or theme, unless that theme is Whatever Strikes Me On Any Given Day. I may share a poem or Scripture that I found especially moving one day. I may try to narrate my way through a work of literature. Or who knows, I could end up posting a ridiculous amount of memes and puppy videos. Let's hope for better things.

In the spirit of Hoping for Better Things, I give you the poem Pied Beauty. 

Pied Beauty

Gerard Manley Hopkins - 1844-1889

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Glory be to God for dappled things—
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
       With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                     Praise Him.