The tree museum (thank you Joni)

Camping Olhão is situated on the edge of the Ria Formosa Natural Park, an area of protected dunes, littoral forest, wetland and sand islands that stretch from Faro to the Spanish border. One of the entrances was a couple of hundred metres from the campsite gate. Though we had only just arrived and only an hour or two of daylight remained we decided to take a walk along the nearby paths through the forest by the shore.

Camping Olhao overlooks the Ria Formosa Natural Park, - tricky to gatecrash, the raiway runs in-between

Moving briskly to get my €2.80's worth....

We strode through the open gates, us and a couple of German women, only to be pursued by an animated, uniformed official. It did not say anywhere that there was an admission fee to walk through the trees. Frog-marched back to the office we duly paid our €2.80s for a ticket and listened attentively to the park receptionist's long explanation of the arboreal highlights marked on the map and took an explanatory leaflet translated into English.

wetlands...

an ancient tidal mill

OK, it's not natural, but man made structures can be beautiful too..

miles of deserted woodlaand paths

beauteous bark

pinewoods at twilight

Umbrella pine - my favourite tree maybe (Gill prefers palms)

If you are going to be charged an entrance fee to stare at some umbrella pines then you could not have chosen a more apt moment. Multiple posts have flooded my Facebook feed celebrating the fact that today is Joni Mitchell's 75th birthday. A couple of them linking to her one major hit - 'Big Yellow Taxi' which contains the lines: 

"They took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum
and then they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em." 

Though it first charted almost half a century ago the message remains as relevant (and as unheeded) as ever. Last week the BBC reported that the world wide appetite for concrete is destroying alluvial sands far faster than the action of oceans, lakes and rivers can create them. We 'pave paradise to put up a parking lot' as the song says.

However it's not as a writer of pithy, socially relevant pop songs that Joni Mitchell is revered, but for the string of unique albums throughout the 1970s that became the soundtrack of a generation that was too young for Woodstock but too old to become punks. Joni's first album 'Song for a Seagull', released in 1968 was the only album Gill and I had in common when we met in 1975. In those days album collections could prove crucial as a marker of compatibility in any burgeoning relationship. I guess the fact that I only owned one of Joni's albums but Gill had every one to date, including the latest, 'Court and Spark', could have proven fatal to our romance, however, over our first summer together I grew to love all of Joni's albums too. It must have been enough to convince Gill that the new man in her life was not quite the one dimensional geek that his jazz, classical and folksy record collection indicated.

Post after post on Facebook about Joni's 75th revealed we were far from the only couple whose relationship had developed with her music as its soundtrack. Quite a few people posted lists of their favourite songs. That there was no real consensus is a testament to both her eclectic style and her wide fan base. I suppose it's inevitable that the best song on an album is not always a personal favourite because sentiment as much as musical taste comes into it. Few people would choose 'Let the Wind Carry Me' from 'For the Roses' as the best track from the album but it's my favourite because it reminds me of the summer when Gill and I first met. So far as favourite albums go 'Hejira' is my choice, but most people probably prefer 'Blue' or 'Hissing of Summer Lawns'.

No wonder we like 'Hejira', especially the song 'Refuge of the Roads', it has to be Rock's greatest evocation of wanderlust - though there are many other contenders - 'Thunder Road', 'Tangled up in blue', 'Duncan', 'America', 'Born to be wild', none come close to capturing being 'porous with travel fever' in the way Joni does; amazing imagery set against her loose jangling guitar jamming with Jaco Pastorius on bass.

My long time cyberpal, painter, poet, New Jersey man about town, Rick Mullin posted a link to his Joni inspired sestina published a couple of years ago around the time the singer was hospitalised after suffering a brain aneurysm. It's a miracle she survived.

I don't have Rick's gift of being able to conjure the right words at the right time. In the case of Joni Mitchell I don't really need to, for her influence is discernible in more or less everything I have ever published. I admire her keen eye for detail, how she mixes observation with personal reflection, how her songs are framed cinematically. I'm not so adept as she is, but I do try.

So, for Joni on her birthday, this one is about travel too. I have been lucky, I found a lifelong travel companion, I don't have to journey alone.  I don't really do poetry any more, this is almost the last thing I wrote - three years ago. It traces our road through autumn, travelling south across France, Switzerland and Italy, heading for Greece.

Autumn stalks us like a jilted lover.

We flee south seeking impossible freedom -

a slow drive over Champagne's ochre plains

russet woods fringing the mirror-still Meuse.

We flee south seeking impossible freedom,

on ancient roads - empty, poplar shadowed,

through russet woods fringing the mirror-still Meuse.

We hardly speak, but watch the wordless light

hush down ancient roads. Empty, plane-tree shadowed,

a crumbling square in some Burgundian town -

we hardly speak, but watch the wordless light -

'le crepuscule’ as we sip our 'deux noisettes'.

A crumbling square in some Burgundian town -

it feels like weeks or months ago,

le crepuscule, as we sipped our 'deux noisettes',

uncertain how each day slipped by unnoticed.

It feels like weeks or months ago

we chanced upon a verdant valley

uncertain how each day slipped by unnoticed,

time sauntering south with us in Autumn's shadow.

We chanced upon a verdant valley:

turquoise lake, sunlit pastures, ice streaked peaks,

time sauntering south with us in Autumn's shadow:

a herder prodding clanging cattle homewards.

Turquoise lake, sunlit pastures, ice streaked peaks,

flowery chalets dotting valley fields -

herders prodding clanging cattle homewards

today, as for the past four thousand years.

Flowery chalets dot the valley fields,

"Is this our earthly paradise," I ask,

"today, as for the past four thousand years,

to walk in peace within each seasons' pulse?"

No earthly paradise! We wanderers ask,

"What lies beyond this green Arcadian valley?"

Peace may dwell within each seasons' pulse,

but we flee south on sultry Autumn's heels

to seek what lies beyond these verdant valleys:

a slow drive south on Puglia's dusty plains,

ever south on the sultry season's heels,

stalking Autumn like her long lost lover.

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