Dark Angels Tuesdays
Dark Angels is a wonderful organisation, https://darkangelswriters.com/ They run courses and help people find their writing voice and develop a writing habit. There's an informal gathering on Tuesday evenings. "Join us for a lovely hour of reading, writing and communing led by Neil Baker. Everyone is welcome; in fact invite a friend along. We meet at 7pm UK time. To join us, click here on the night. There’s no need to register in advance and we’ll be using the same link every week from now on."
November
Nov 15th (prompt, Jess Mookherjee: Jetsom from 'Notes from a shipwreck')
There were apple trees in our back garden
and a fibreglass dinghy, home for the winter
I sat in it as my father pushed the lawnmower through the grass
rosy-cheeked and playing on my own
on the high seas, looking for firm land and certainty
perhaps sensing the storms ahead
I gathered things to put in the boat that might be useful
a pebble, a jar to keep things in, a fallen apple, my doll
and a straight stick
I held it up to my nose
'look daddy' I said
'I'm Norman!'
'hello Norman' he said
Back Yard (Prompt, Braided Creek by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison
A gang of sparrows has taken over the backyard
they sit and squabble in the hedge
and take it in turns to harass the neighbourhood of our fig tree
The chickens peck at what they scatter
the finches and tits pick their moment to appear
and our Robin tries to keep order on the ground
by chasing the odd one off
but takes refuge if the flock descends
only a magpie who always calls out in advance
can disperse the unruly crowd
he sweeps in and clears the area
cawing every now and then to keep them all at bay
as he cleans up the pickings
and then like an inspector flies off when he's done
Eleazer Meyrick
Unusual this orphan
living with his Mamgu
for his father is there, alive and known, but mostly absent
no sign that there was ever a mother
no record that been found in the archives
only a half remembered story
as unreliable as gossip
that she came back for him
and they walked all the way from Port Henry to Ebbw Vale
He thrived, he married
only a whisper of a name - a witness at the wedding
who might have been, could have been, his mam
His many children, when asked in old age,
seemed not to know his story
as though he'd been born into a fairytale
I will search again for a trail of breadcrumbs
or a sign from the trees and birds
Coram Boy
She'd asked if this was his grandson
October
Gileston - ancestral homecoming
An honorary guard of saluting trees
who's apples fall with gravity through time
a door as broad as a mothers smile
a dark secret before all is revealed by a beckoning whisper
a fireplace waiting to be lit with voices
a warm light guiding the weary to comfort
twin stairs that run and laugh as they confuse you
leading upwards
doors that open onto other doors
and doors that open onto cupboards
doors that change places overnight
the ghost trodden floorboards groan
hidden by soft carpet when you close doors
boots and shoes by the door
like patient dogs waiting for the next adventure
13th September
On the phone to my mother
(prompt: Michael Mark "Dancing with my father at my son's wedding'
I phoned my mum this afternoon
we joked that it's to check that she's still alive
It's really because I know she's been on her own for a couple of days
her husband away
We talked about her aches and pains
and agreed that she she sounds chirpy enough
despite being aware of a chestiness
which is of course what carried the Queen off
She's been cutting up the pears I'd given her
"I'm going to make jam tonight"
"don't burn yourself while Chris is away" I say in a moment of alarm
"He'll be back by then" she says
There is a familiar feeling of having nothing more to say
I realise as it passes that I might regret it one day soon
It's the onions
I chopped an onion for supper tonight
and didn't scrub my hands enough afterwards
As we write I realise I am tapping into a seam of tension and emotion
As we contemplate what we've written
prompted by a piece which mentions onions
my eye begins to water uncontrollably
it's not about my mother
it's the onions
Who am I?
I have thoughts that only I can think
I move in my own way
I interact with the world in the way
only I know how
I'm calm and serene
whilst ticking off the days
and also savouring the present
I'm approaching autumn
bit by bit, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute
on a mega adventure of mini adventures
I just need to breathe in and out
eat every now and then
think and stay warm
hugs are good
it's only Tuesday and I like it
06 September 2022
Falling (prompt: Helen Dunmore)
I'm holding on as long as I can.
Yesterday a sudden storm howled through our branches
but surprisingly few of us fell.
She comes each morning and sorts through the fallen
saving the least wounded and discarding those
whose bodies are smashed and already attracting the wasps.
She doesn't care if some of us are rotten at the core
or if we're a bit disfigured
but perhaps she'll forget about us and delay too long
before adding vinegar and sugar and transforming
our tart bitterness into sweet brown sticky jars of autumn
30th August 2022
Practicing for retirement
"Output really does depend on the quality of the input" I would say to the years new intake.
"Find the extra ordinary in the ordinary"
"Be willing not to know".
And now I know that I will shortly be choosing the focus of each day
curating my life as I choose,
no longer beholden or contracted
I can weave a mesh to catch myself
as I see how far I dare to unravel
Sometimes I care, sometimes I don't ( prompt Jacqueline Saphra)
I used to be unable to take a walk down the street without picking up the rubbish
I was famous for nicely getting dangerous looking youths to laugh with me
as they picked their own waste up and tossed it in a nearby bin on request
Some neighbours grew disheartened at the litter from cars in the lanes where we live
I trained myself to think - so many cars, not so much rubbish.
and really those who toss the cans, sweets and fast food will just die young...
so now sometimes I care and sometimes I don't
August 2022
Living in the present, rooted in the past (prompt: Wendell Berry)
A moth eaten choir of ancestors are quietly waiting
in files of notes and photographs and records
for the moment to step out into the light and sing out their stories.
I am overwhelmed by their census details,
a glimpse of a life recorded
sometimes with care, sometimes not,
at a point in time at a particular place now half forgotten.
It consumes hours,
digging, delving, mining, excavating,
retreading the footwork, documented by hand
by my own mother and grandfather
finding a cold case to worry at.
I honour my ancestors by including them
in my digital garden of souls
each one a leaf, not just the branches
especially the overlooked,
the spinster, the daughter, the wife, the lost, the buried, the unclaimed.
I mark the spot where they swept the floor or fed the pig if I can,
pouring over tithe maps and misspelt Welsh place-names
A visceral thrill when a place reveals itself
as somewhere I already know and love.
living in the present, rooted in the past
August 16 2022
Drought (prompt - Annette Wolfing)
Hard to credit now with the soft pitter patter on the leaves
and the light from outside needing a boost
from the lightbulb inside,
that only yesterday,
it was too hot and bright to venture out until late into the evening.
The leaves had given up,
shrivelling and shedding in autumn heaps too soon.
Too late for them this precious rainfall
Summer Rain (prompt: Jane Kenyons)
"I love the heat me" says Dennis, "I'm used to it" on the first day they came.
But as the sun reached full strength, Luke, the younger of the two was at the door
"I wasn't expecting this, I'm unprepared"
and a system was put in place to keep the drinks coming.
That day I got ice lollies out too, and worried overnight
if they'd be back in the morning laid up or laid up with sunstroke.
This week, so close to the end of the job
with the bricks laid with such care
the routine of tea, white, no sugar
and coffee, white, one sugar
bottles of squash waiting in the fridge
the longed for summer rain has threatened, but held off until the end of the working day.
Paths and lifelines
Right or left, North or South,
up the hill for a view or down the valley for the sound of the river
Which ever path I choose,
the seasons each have a way of connecting with forever.
At a turn in the ancient woodland path I might meet a labourer
walking home from harvest
or one of the village boys hiding a snared rabbit under his coat.
The kingfishers and the summer geese don't know what century it is,
the wheat is still cut
the corn still tall
changing the character of the land
Some foot paths choked with brambles, other so well worn
that they're like the heart and lifelines on the palm of my hand
July 2022
Eleazer's mam (version 1)
She was fourteen and shy
when her brother's friend, ten years her senior,
found her in the yard
she's been scrubbing the rags silently
avoiding Dada's grief and Mam's wailing,
their hand still clasping onto the little life
as it slipped away with the dust moats inside.
He's always been a looker, this man.
He had a reputation that all the girls knew about
apart from her that is.
With little Annie always at her feet to watch,
and the boys up to no good, over the field or in the woods
and Mam laid up, she'd had no time to gossip
When he smiled at her that morning it was the first time she's ever been seen.
Eleazer's Mam (version 2)
Don't make a fuss they said
once they realised that blaming the girl for wantonness would not wash,
since neighbour Mary and her boy
had witnessed the incident in the lower barn
when all the rest of the village were occupied
rounding up the squeeling pigglets.
No seductress this.
Her cousin used fists and threats, where sweet talk and compliments had failed
A girl they said, had been in service nearby,
and begged his mother to take the baby in, for fear of her employer
and then vanished in thin air.
In truth Eleazer grew up with his granny, brothers sisters and cousins
not knowing that she, the quietest of them all
watched his every move, defended him at every turn
once she had returned from Santstefan,
that year when auntie Margaret needed a bit of extra help.
Family detective
Finally my inner detective is satisfied.
Tracking someone down based on the scantiest of facts,
finding the clues in the repetition through generations of names
of a sister or a mother sneaking in her maiden name
and sorting the mackerel from the red herrings.
Blind alleys lead to opening doors into other peoples lives
occupations, locations, half remembered stories,
forgotten by my childish self, now like a little candles
set into a wall just around the next corner
I have this not unfamiliar feeling following in the steps in notes
of others searching back into the past.
The feeling of overlooking something they've already uncovered
and that, if only I had the patience to read again, there lies the answer I'm looking for.
In the aftermath of my brothers death I had this strong sense
of his frustration with me being unable to follow the trail
he'd so meticulously laid in his paperwork and records,
whilst trying to executing his wishes.
So much work has already been done.
I'm looking for the colour in the stories
in the places and extended families
for characters, for daily lives and hardships
the sisters, the forgotten wayward brothers.
Lost Family
Looking for someone particular, I found someone else in the census of 1901.
A man and his little girl, in a dwelling, with the surname I was searching for, in the right town.
Unsure I moved on.
1911 found the girl again, same town, but now at 13 an adopted daughter
with people of a different name.
The story is in the detail
I turn back to the neighbours of the dwelling next door in 1901,
to occupations and ages to check and check again.
The bond of military service is there – honour and loyalty and love.
Samuel and Mary Cope took in Elizabeth Ritchie as their own,
lost her mother before three years old and then her father too.
She's no relation to me but like the Copes, I feel she is now
Current affairs
Prompt: "the rival" Jack Burnside sometimes
When she hears him from another room, in conversation with another,
quiet urgent tone, laying out the arguments he's read,
she realises that he's turned away from her.
Disappointed that she has not grasped or fully realised the situation.
To him, she stumbles on in ignorance or worse.
He used to attribute to her the counter view, that of
a misguided zealot he could demolish
She admires the depth of his knowledge, his grasp and understanding
she wishes that he'd try again and not react so to her robust coontrary opinions.
She'd rather have a hug, agree to disagree,
although when she disagrees, she's usually right
She realises that he'd rather current affairs than her
12.07.22
The Catch (prompt: Norman MacCaig
At dusk, secure in our birth, shipshape and tidy, supper done,
the gentle lap, lap of the water against the hull.
In, on the tide, comes the late call of a commotion of gulls,
voices raised and quiet quay busies as the working day reaches its crescendo
with the roar of diesel-geared manoeuvres against the harbour wall
and the metallic sound of winches.
Hand to hand the ice boxes, loaded with squirming silver, land.
Wild Camping in moonlight (prompt: Alice Oswald - Dart)
I dreamt, it came from hearing but not seeing, knowing the moonlight was there
Creeping around hidden, the voices raised, all around, taunting,
a rabble knocking us up, baying for blood
I woke and slipping out into the moonlit night, heartbeat ringing,
seeing my breath, hearing the rustle of something much bigger than a bird or mouse,
A Wolf...
Then, through the ferns on that secret private path, eyes of woolly beasts,
munching their white way through the night.
28.06.22
Sunday School (prompt: Rob Cowen)
Squashed up against this ample docile woman in the car,
my grandmother smelt of face powder and kid gloves.
The hanky would come out and with a spit and lick
she'd rub my face as we travelled to a place of hard benches
and showing off to the Joneses, the boredom alleviated only
by the harmonious singing of doleful Welsh hymns which I could belt out.
An overzealous Sunday school teacher once threw a hymn book at one of us
for asking what was deemed a heretical question, whilst colouring in a bible scene
with blunt, chewed pencil crayons.
It came to the point where I climb the apple tree in order not to go one day
and soon afterwards it seemed, my grandmother dropped dead one Sunday morning.
My father's vow to accompany her to chapel while she still went was spent.
I don't remember going again.
The birds are talking about us (prompt: Duddleswell by Sian Thomas)
I'm glad it's raining and cold today, because I feel quite ill
I burnt the midnight oil, after a busy nothing-packed day
and paid an exorbitant price for it.
The thought that it's retribution creeps in,
for chopping back the Hazel and the Fig trees in the backyard, too hard yesterday.
after giving up the fight to allow nature to go its own wild way. @
We'll be able to see the birds better" he said
"the birds are talking about us" I said later,
viewing the desolation from the window.
and now today all I want to do is sleep.
The birds did quite like it.
26.06.22
The Power of Love
Apart from the photographs, which swamp actual memory,
perhaps because they're passed around and discussed and embellished by words,
my earliest memories of my father is if someone held together by too tight a belt.
(photograph intrusion!)
Sometimes cross: I remember the three of us scurrying at the sound of the car,
like an air raid siren, to put everything back in tidy perfect order
Sometimes melancholy: "don't be sad daddy" as I would climb onto his lap
feeling as powerful as a ray of sunshine
Feared and loved at different times, an all powerful deity, who I held sway over
It was the shouting that built wariness, layer by layer, and make me who I am
I've had my moments, I've rebelled, and drawn my boundaries. Shouted back.
Withdrawn. And finally, when his power was weak,
loved unconditionally with kindness.
21.06.22
Lost in the greenery
These days, I want to find paths I've not walked before
still on the beaten track
I'm not craving thorns and hedges to catch my clothes and tear my skin
but getting lost somewhere at once knew and somehow familiar
ancient tracks taking me to woods, by streams and through head high bracken
trusting my feet to find the path
treading lightly through the past
and always after my little daring adventure
I find all at once, I know where I am, and head for home
I have wasted my life
I have wasted my life
searching for something that was there all the time
hidden just over there
in the shade of the trees
in the tangle of weeds that grow prettily without effort
on the breeze that cools the summer sun
as we whiz through the lanes
in the chat of the magpies at the start of the day
Only now, just before it's too late, have I realised this
14.07.22|
Growing up
Like everyone else I run away from home once
Setting off around the corner of leafy hedges
where I had walked each morning marvelling at the spiders webs
It was there, a while ago, I had realised that what I thought was different from every other person
that all my experiences were unique to me
I didn't stay away long enough for anyone to notice I had gone.
It was boredom that took me back, not a longing for home
I didn't realise then what it was I was running away from
Sisters who jump
What interests me as I search for names and scroll through the pages of lives
is a glimpse of their choices
When I read of the eight, nine, eleven births of boys and girls,
searching to see if they survived until the next census
I'm in a suspended state
wanting to complete a never-ending task and yet delve deeper
into the stories of these daughters of chance
which sisters were content?
which sisters jumped?
what lives would they have led if they lived now?
07.06.22
Family Tree
The stories of lives are waiting like fruit to be plucked from our family tree
half hidden in the foliage,
waiting to be rediscovered like forgotten potatoes
fertilised by a death or a birth
tended by the generation before
but ignored by the living until they want to make sense of their own conundrums
Doing Nothing
Now, this time, when I contemplate doing nothing it no longer feels me with dread
This time, now, when there are not enough hours in the day to do what I want
I can suddenly think of loads of things I can take my time over
Sort through the millions of photos on my phone
clear out, draw by draw the accumulation of stuff
weed the garden, properly, at leisure
fix more things for my elderly neighbour or just sit and have tea
now, this time, I relish the thought of doing nothing in a busy kind of way
this time must be the right time, now
31.05.22
Empty Hands
What will happen when I no longer have to answer the questions of others?
The gift of questions has been my answer for almost three decades.
What will be the point of me once the weight of responsibility is lifted?
Will I find at last new questions, my own,
and enjoy turning them over like interesting feathers
or stones on an afternoon's walk and find that they fill my empty hands?
Will I be able to fill my day, which now feels rushed and fraught
with new lines of enquiry to keep me busy?
Or will I enjoy the peace of doing nothing at all?
The Gift of a Singing Heart
Walking through the fine art studio, as the work for the summer show is close to ready
made my heart sing today
Knowing that the nest in the crack in the wall is empty because the fledglings flew
because I saw them
fumbling and uncertain with their parents patiently nearby
made my heart sing yesterday
Tomorrow the sun will shine or the rain will water my vegetables
and the world will turn
and my heart will sing
24.05.22
Not Special
No, you're not special
no, your shoulder is not damaged beyond repair
what's wrong with you is very common
(your friends and colleagues told you so)
and will respond well if you just
do the bloody exercises
you'll have to dig them out now and apply yourself
you knew as soon as you saw
the pain etched on that woman's face
that you were a charlatan
you did get a little kindly validation
you weren't turned away with a flea in your ear
nor a sign 'attention seeker' placed around your neck
and knowing it's going to be alright
even lessened the pain a bit.
24.05.22
Death at Dusk
Last night I looked out at dusk across the lawn
my heart stopped
our gorgeous black cat dangerously close to the wall, looking up
worse, next door's dainty killer tabby on top
a small corpse in her mouth in the fading light
For weeks we've been marvelling at
a pair of blue tits
back and forth incessantly, tending their nest
cunningly hidden behind a veil of Aubretia
I was glad the cat did not come in last night
This morning I sat at first light
dreading the evidence by absence
of the little birds' hopes dashed
and then I saw them, both
cruelly I forgot the other little dead corpse
and greeted my black velvet boy with warmth
as he came in for breakfast
10.05.22
The view from the window
From every window in the house
there's something to lookout upon
and as we go from room to room
each view is framed as if on purpose
The house itself is nothing much
although it flows from one space
to another in a pleasing way
But leaving here and finding
somewhere else to match the feeling
that comes, returning from a journey,
that I cannot picture
Kitchen knife
I have my mother's kitchen knife
She prided herself in cutting bread with it,
the loaf upright on its end
it was as sharp as her wit
I have this memory of her
cutting the heads off mackerel,
passed from the sea to the cockpit
and down through the hatch to her
Beheaded and gutted and tossed
into a pan of sizzling butter
Her words can be cutting too
I could never eat them
26.04.22
Sparrows
How I envied the sparrows
squabbling and squawking in the tree
outside my window today
Distracted from my task
by the sudden racket
I peered and glimpsed them
rowdy and rude in the sunshine
playing or fighting?
Perhaps what looked to me like
a scene bursting with life
was really a fight to the death
Singing in a cave
you or is it I, like to say
I stole your heart
singing in a cave
in Snowdonia
We'd trekked in a group
you, equipped like a boy scout
me, a sturdy welsh hill pony
and then like a siren's call
I'd beguiled you with a song
What else is there to do
when you find yourself in a cave
but sing?
I sang a Welsh hymn
a slow melancholy song
most often sung in funerals
but it heralded the beginning
not the end
Closely related
At sixty one I feel much more myself
than I ever have.
I'm quite closely related to the other mes.
Looking back at who I've been
through the decades, I'm calmer, more content,
surer that not being sure is just fine.
I'm like a gentler cover version
of a favourite song.
22.03.22
Spring
This spring
even the old tree
which surely must be dead this year
with its bark blotched and brittle with lichen
has broken out in fresh new leaves
And even where we dumped some stones and earth last autumn
is home to the bluebell leaves
pushing up through the cracks once more
And as for me? A boldness not the first blush of youth
But like a maturing tree putting out new shoots
03.05.22
Old friends - from a prompt 'Old Friends' by Freya Manfred
Aftertaste - from a prompt 'Everybody made soups' by Lisa Coffman
Old Friends
Aftertaste
Two pieces about memory, prompted by
Notes From A Non-Existent Himalayan Expedition by Wislawa Szymborska
and
Dark Pines under water by Gwendolyn McEwan
Memories
subtly different each time they recalled
but still indelibly etched by the retelling
The trick if you want to forget,
is to rewrite history
Imagine the ending you want
or even better a new beginning
Invite hope in
Dare to tell a different tale
one not stuck in the rut of the past
Memory
Dipping into water that is so clear
yet distorts when touched
Delving with a stick that bends
and never quite reaches the bright stone
There's something down there
if only I could grasp it in my hand
and either toss it back
or hold it deep in my pocket at last
22.03.22
Spring
How can we fight
when Winter turns to Spring?
The Sun like a searchlight
should stop War in its tracks
shaming us to drop our weapons.
How, when the snow thaws and the birdsong fills the trees
can we strike and shoot
and blow up the land and its people?
Hate and Fear should melt away and Love for everything
should poke up its head in the secret belief
that it will grow true and strong once more.
I had a dad, he was a trans-woman for 33 years
until she died at the age of eighty four
I still have a mother
So when my dad was alive she wasn’t my mother
she was my dad and occasionally reminded me of that
When introducing her to friends or colleagues, I wouldn’t go there
and would say this is Lynn, his original and her name
Occasionally people would say to me ‘how’s your mum’
or ‘I met your mum last week’
I’d gently check
In hospital settings it was always ‘your mum’ or ‘mum’s not so good’
except when we needed to make it quite clear
that despite surgery she was still biologically male
quite important as you get older
Trans women are women?
trans women are trans-women
2021
The meeting
I allowed myself to be triggered
my self-regulation weakened by a string of provocations
What we didn’t discuss was behaviour and tone
Yours.
The complaint and negativity must be such a weight to carry
Being stuck in the past, allowing that to colour the present
It must be a dull and colourless place to linger
Me? I must reflect, seek feedback and move forward with decisiveness.
A thin place
A thin place full of something I cannot grasp
the air shimmers here
I feel so close to the past as though I’m not just walking in someone else’s footsteps
I’m still in their presence
they could be just around the bend in the path ahead
the creaking tree speaking to them as well as to me
the echoes of tangible light whispering a remembered tune through the leaves
The heroine who saves the day
I am the heroine who saves the day
I’m driving the bus that tips the getaway car into the ditch
I rescue my husband from the desert lair
and hand him an ice cold lager I’ve opened with my teeth
the neighbour’s baby is asleep in his car seat as we drive towards the dawn
as I glance in the mirror I notice the scar above my eye
is quite becoming in the blue flashing lights of the police escort
The decision
what if what you have to do to save your life is to stay?
once when it was bad I spent a day and a half living how it would be to walk away
to cut loose from the tug of daughterly duty
the thing is I knew that to save my life I had to listen to my heart
re draw my boundaries and let Love conquer all
the decision once made was easy
Frog Princess
You were the princess and the frogs, snakes and spiders
concentration on your face digging in the mud in your fairy costume
or playing the guitar
playing frisbee, the confidence radiating from your small self
and now “she may look like a child but she is the doctor”
your colleagues know that behind the sunshine smiles
your quick hands and steely focus will guide them through
I need you
I need you like a hole in the head
I need you like a head needs a bed
I need a rest like a boss needs to stop
I need you like a fizz need some Pop
I need you like the start line needs a gun
I need you to take me for a run
I need you to clear up my mess
I need you to say ‘a different dress’ (so I can ignore you)
I need you to decide where we go
I need you to speed up my go slow
I need you to talk about politics
I need you to argue the opposite
More sleep
I’m not ready, not ready at all
I can’t stop the light from teasing me awake
although I’m only now aware of having slept at all
What silent sounds stir me from light asleep in the early hours?
The black night tells me not yet, and soothes me back to sleep
But now the dim light, like the gentle mewing of our hungry cat, calls.
I’m not ready, not ready at all
I need more
Cicadian rhythm
I wish I could lie in longer
But my bones ache and a day awaits
I’m brighter in the morning
I’m quick off the mark
But as the day draws to a close and the night draws in
I fade away
My bones ache again and all at once I’m ready
ready to stop and start over
Exhaustion
I’m depleted, and exhausted
Exhausted by the unknown
the unknown and inevitable
Slowly, despite the mindfulness and the exercise,
my pre-frontal cortex is a flat battery
and my emotions are a box of monkeys pulling my hair a bit too hard
Three joyous things noted at the end of the day are not enough
to stop the tears falling at the slightest invitation
Muddleheaded and distracted, fight flight and freeze are simultaneous instincts
Cut to the quick by thoughtless words, ready to fight back and stick up
only to run away and lick my wounds
Though I’m compelled to visit, feeling almost a mothers guilt
at abandoning a child to strangers,
I am a child myself, bearing the responsibility again
for those who were meant to care for me
Self-regulation
I drank too much last night
I never drink too much, I don’t particularly like alcohol
But last night I deliberately fortified a gin and tonic until I felt it take affect
To see if it would dull the weariness
reminded that not for nothing is it called mother’s ruin
Neighbours called round and polished off some wine
and I, after peaking too soon, I drank water
Too much or not enough, am I too much or not enough?
Night Watch
Two hours
the interval between sleeping and waking
keeping watch through the night
an ache, thirst, a hot flush, it’s not a noise that pulls me to the surface
It’s never pitch black even in the deepest dark of winter
the moon, the Village Street lights, the festive lights someone forgot to unplug
I’m comforted by a small lump of cheese or a tangerine and pad back to bed.
Birdfeeder
I refill the birdfeeder with peanuts
never really sure whether in a mild winter like this the tits and finches need it
no one has bothered with the apples left on the ground
But I see our Robin in the hole in the hedge so I fill it and wait
A lone blue tit sat high up in the fig tree chirrups for reinforcements
The Robin, fluffed up, observes from a distance
while the smaller birds one by one arrive
And then once, twice, hopping to perch nearby
like a plump girl at a swimming pool shy and self-conscious
afraid the swinging feeder won’t take its weight
Then I realise the robin is just curious
waiting for me to put out something tastier than peanuts
Christmas chilling
Relaxing Unwinding Easing out of the everyday demands and tensions
There is time for colour for cooking for contemplating fat robins and leaf patterns
looking around and seeing what I’ve made and imagining what I’ll make next
Slow down
The turn in the year turns me inward
There’s solace in the shortening days
the permission to turn in early and wake up late
I’ve found it best not to fight it
but to soften into the gentler rhythm
slowdown, slowdown is the whisper in the muffled dark
and gently, slowly as sure as night follows day
the light will rekindle the life force in us all and revive our exhausted souls
Winter sun
Here you come, just letting us know you’re still there
after the foggiest, coldest bone chilling bike ride through the midwinter lanes
where we can’t see beyond the cut-back hedgerows until
through the milk mist clouds you try to warm us
with a cold glow touching our rosy cheeks
Dark time
It’s been a dark time
I’ve narrowly avoided the rocks rowing hard against the overwhelming sea
imagining that shipwreck is inevitable
Grappling with the dark thoughts that are my own siren call
Which you is you, who am I in this?
Until the dawning of a thought
If I let go and let the wind blow let the tide take us, the storm will pass
I’ll find clear passage and peace
Shine bright
Shine bright like Christmas lights
Shine bright like a guiding star
Shine bright like a head torch on a country road
Shine bright like glowing embers
Shine bright like a shard of glass in the sun
Shine bright like a hot flame
Shine bright and dazzle even if they dazed
Shine bright to light another’s way
Shine bright and find your way
Shine bright on what is fair
Shine bright on what’s not
Churchyard mission
I didn’t notice the green grass of the graveyard as I reached the edge of the wood
I was surprised by our bounding joyous cat
pleased at seeing me unexpectedly in his territory
my mission: to release the captured mouse from the humane trap into the leaves
he didn’t notice as it darted across the path into the undergrowth
As we return he accompanies me on a detour around the church
I’m looking for his hidey-hole, his shelter, his secret place
we return together and it’s only now
as I look again out of my window at the brightening world
that I notice how green the grass is.
Rising before dawn
Rising before dawn brings me joy
Waking before the strike of the clock
It gives me time in hand
full of promise and potential
a head start
I want the time for reflection
to stretch and breathe
Watching as the light colours the view from my window
Like a wet paintbrush on a magic colouring book page
Joy and calm arms for the day ahead
Burning the old year
What do you keep what does sacrifice to the flame?
All those shameful moments of which I’m not proud can go
the harsh words fizz and pop
they still spark hot and angry
The hesitation and inertia take a while to set a light and linger a bit longer than I’d like Fleeting moments of despair, the guilt and self-doubt groan and moan
until the light and warmth overcomes them
I’ll keep the energy of the glowing embers and the calm that follows from letting it all go
Wolf Moon
As I drove home today
the Wolf Moon, impossibly beautiful,
enchanted all the traffic on the road
Each of us transfixed by its light and perfect roundness
slowed our race home
and opened our hearts to the moment
Birds
Blue tits great tits
a coal tit and two long-tailed tits
our robin and a mob of sparrows
and maybe a dunnock hiding amongst them
a goldcrest a black bird and an upside-down nuthatch
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