Creative Collections

Pied Things

~ Gerald Manly Hopkins

Glory be, glory be, glory be to God for dappled things
Glory be, glory be, 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;
Glory be, glory be, glory be to God for dappled things

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
And 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.

*** Little Miss M. is practicing styling on her dresser complete with rocks or rather a pile of builders' rubble amidst the girly trinkets.  She's quite a bower bird and makes shrines out of her found objects. But I don't know how she managed to smuggle this lot of rocks in.  I'll regularly find wrappers, pebbles, sticks, flowers and Shrinky Dinks* in her pockets and at the bottom of her school bag.. and then have to discreetly dispose of items.  Unless she catches me, then all hell breaks loose.

Right now she's making Beados** so that will be more creative material to add the installation art.

* Trade name of a children's craft kit which appears to involve drawing etched designs on lethally sharp pieces of a material designed by NASA.   Usually the by-product of After-School Hours Care or Holiday Programs.

** Tradename of a children's craft kit which involves the decorative placement of tiny coloured balls which adhere to each other when wet.  Falls apart easily and stray balls can be found for months later in strange places. 

Both need to be recalled in the interests of parental sanity... along with the dreaded Hama Beads.