September 15th

 

scarlet seamstress works

from the beating heart outward

hare formed from fine twine

It was the last weekend of Animals Inside Out at the Natural History Museum. I popped down early on Saturday to check it out.

I’d previously been to see Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds exhibition many years ago when it first toured London. I have a both an admiration, yet a certain ambivalence to his work. I guess, and preposterous as it sounds, despite my love and support of science, there is still some deep seated superstition within me which makes me uneasy around death. Especially when the corpses (plastinised or not) are playing flippin’ tennis or something equally mundane.

Luckily, there wasn’t a giant squid playing tennis against a bull in this exhibition. It was educational, with a real art aesthetic that made you gasp and look deeply. The animals all had died of natural causes, but it still made me sad to see such magnificent animals displayed in this way. The elephant seemed especially haunting somehow. Not because von Hagens had done anything wrong, it just seems sad that so many animals are at threat of extinction and soon our knowledge of them will be driven from travelling sideshows such as these.

The pedestals with the small animals, such as the Hare below were beautiful. Every capillary captured. The tiny tracks of where blood once flowed.

Pic from the Sun

I also popped next door, to the Science Museum, where they had an Alan Turing exhibition. This is Alan Turing year, it would have been his 100th birthday. What a genius. What a sad story.

April 7th

Reared up on hind legs

taut and lissom hare surveys

green and pleasant land

 

Was it a hare we saw in the grass on Pegsdon Hills as we drove past? Probably not, it was dusk, we didn’t get much of a chance to study it, but I’d love to see one, they’ve always eluded me. Once I did think I saw one, it was certainly rabbit/hare like in shape and it seemed to be striding rather than hopping. It looked big. But part of me doubts the way I perceive things. Until I’m 100% sure, I can’t say I’ve seen one. It might be my brain planting a wish into the way my eyes interpret the real world. Can’t say for sure.

Hopefully I’ll catch them boxing at some stage this spring, that will be a sight to behold. I make no apology for quoting the great talent that was William Blake in this Haiku :)

(pic from bbc website)