Enchanted by the changing landscape

THE other evening, venturing forth after the deluges, I walked out of a meadow into the half-darkness of an old beech wood.

The change in light was dramatic: suddenly I was in a deep green world, hushed and still. The ground was carpeted in ivy, the tree trunks half covered in moss. High above, the green canopy was unbroken but for pinpricks of light here and there.

The Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, wrote a famous poem called The Sleepwalker’s Ballad. The sleepwalker says: “Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas”.