Storm Colour Almost any year, on a day in February,
snow-clouds of indigo. blue come up from the North and thicken beyond the hills in the late afternoon while the sun is still strong in the South-West. Suddenly the stark light is unreal. Gulls turning above the deep brown ploughed land have the pure brilliance of snow-birds, the young corn flames up, the young beans are as blue as steel. And there is a sudden miraculous revelation of spring in the trees and on the woodland distances. Beech and poplar and willow and elm and even oak smoulder with strong reflected light on swollen sepia buds ; birch and hawthorn and alder are like clouds of smoky maroon-brown ; catkins of hazel seem suspended in air, branchless, like candles of honey. The chance breast of a chaffinch flashes with tropical splendour and geese stand against the raw emerald grass like birds of porcelain. And along every hedgerow the horns of wild- arum are like bright green glass, and every fattening claret hawthorn bud is pinpricked with cream.
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