One sentence. Friday 02nd May 2025.

Today’s sentence:

“The secrets of field and stream; of the small, wild things are best known by the child of spring and most useful to adult of autumn who has forgotten them.”

Inspiration and Observation:
The rhyme of the heralds of changing seasons, lodged in my head when I was young. The Bee, the Bumble Bee, the Horned Snail, the Corncrake, the Cuckoo, and the Swallow. I heard it first from Shane Cassidy, my dear childhood pal. It has remained with me from very young. Its purpose was to remind one to look out for the arrival of insects, gastropod, and birds which became active or arrived back from winter homes, as the weather warmed and spring to hold. As we grow older and become more busy, we tend to leave the wonder of the natural world behind. Maybe it is the distance from the ground, which removes us from the intimacy of the lives of woodlice and tadpoles. The race to grow up can leave us deaf to the song of birds, blind to the trails of snails, and in the most advanced cases can atrophy completely. Symptoms of the worst strains can lead the afflicted to see wildlife as trophies, whales are commodities, and nature as an inconvenience to progress. It would do us all the world of good to become more in tune with the Magpies at the bottom of your garden, than the Demagogue at the bottom of your newsfeed.

The sentence lodged for later use as:
“The secrets of the small, wild things are best known by the child of field and stream, and most useful to the adult who has forgotten them.”

It evolved as:

• “The secrets of the small, wild things are best known by the child of field and stream, and most useful to the adult who has forgotten them.”
• “The secrets of summer’s field and stream; of the small, wild things are best known by the child of spring and most useful to adult of autumn who has forgotten them.”
• “The secrets of field and stream; of the small, wild things are best known by the child of spring and most useful to adult of autumn who has forgotten them.”

Featured image by Lasse Nystedt from Unsplash. Thank you.