Venus in our vines

I had a real weekend of contrasts when it came to running. On Saturday I did the usual run with my group over 20k's or so out at the Cotter Reserve. It feels like you are in the middle of nowhere, yet it is only about a 10 minute drive from Canberra's western suburbs. It was a gloopy morning for running with mist and light drizzle. The conditions (at left) could easily have been mistaken for any melancholy day on the Yorkshire moors.

But then came Sunday. This time I was alone, doing one of my favourite runs - and taking photos along the way - from my home in Gordon in Canberra's southern suburbs to the Pine Island reserve then back along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River to home. It was another of those mornings where me the runner, and the birds, the bees, the flowers and the trees all were in love with one another. We were all so high on fresh air and the blue skies that this couldn't have been legal. What a morning!

A morning like this recently with one of my running buddies brought out the poet in me again:

From where does Nature's sleeping beauty spring?
When playful runners roam those dream time hills
And watch the dawn's gold sail to which we cling
To starry skies and the winter moon's chills
Or season's blush - frosty fall's disrobed trees
Kangaroos, scarlet birds, a river's wealth
Wattle wonders, nectar and springtime bees
Nature's pulse, ancient lines that rule by stealth
But how does a lofty mind see such things?
When flirty running girl is my eye's feast
And mankind loses its sense to false kings
Beauty for one, is just another's beast
Yet fragrance flows from Adam's love for Eve
It's Venus in our vines to which we breathe.

For the record, my poem conforms to the structures of a Shakespearean sonnet. I am trying to say that there is so much beauty in Nature, yet sometimes we can be distracted by "flirty running girls" or the materialism of life ("false kings") and beauty is also in the eye of the beholder ("beauty for one is just another's beast").

Yet the bottom line is that it is a man's love for a woman and vice versa that allows us to see beauty in Nature. It's the Venus (love) in our vines (Nature) to which we breathe.

We are so lucky to be runners to allow us to see and feel such things.