12 JUNE 1993, Page 50

Adonis Blue

Today in a field of lucerne ninety nine butterflies flew around in shimmying circles, daft and dizzy and blue; hieroglyphs for recalling the sky on the day it was planned, these original jottings in Quink dashed off by a master-hand; or bits of a torn-up letter airmailed into the blue, to be caught and stuck together with brushes and pots of glue; ad extravagant issue of stamps released on a cloudless day, curled by the sun on a desk top, then brilliantly blowing away.

Like falling in love without asking, the moment was suddenly there lambent with possibility, gratuitous, open, like air.

Beatrice Garland