Story

This Book

Opened up

What kind of diary are you;

Thoughts turned into marks ?

In the alchemy of your imagination

I see the ripples of creation

Thought waves radiating,

Sometimes

A momentary pause

To read this palm

Now the next

Look up and wait,

Until you see its story.

Rainbow

ROYGBIV

Five bridges spanning

Colours joining earth and sky

Deep blues fading in

Auron went mushrooming at first light one day with her mother and father. The faerie field yielded up some treasures for them and they walked along the hedge, gathering fruits, then entered the wood at the top of the hill.

Auron and her father could hear the trees talking, as always. Mother either ignored them or pretended not to hear them, Auron wasn't sure why. Once she'd asked, mother, can you not hear the trees talking ? and she'd replied, with a shrug, what if I can, it's no business of mine.

This day, the trees sounded animated, agitated and by the time the three sat down to rest beside the pool in the clearing, the tree voices had reached such a cacophony of sound that their individual voices were indistinguishable and the whole sounded like a long, sad drone.

The little family sat in silence, listening, even the mother was paying attention now and as it eventually subsided to a whispering wind, their attention was drawn by a quiet, deep voice emanating from a nearby ancient oak.

🍃

To fall with grace

You said I was like a feather

I felt more like a gyroscope

You said the wind will blow me

And so I climbed back on the rope

Now I'm feeling like a woman on a high wire

One slip and it's a long way down

Turn my world around I want to hear

the sound of my parachute opening

As I'm floating

Towards the ground.

Paths

How many paths without a beating heart did you travel along

is not the sort of question one expects to form a song inside

one's head whilst sleeping soundly

until alarm bells ring outside me and I have to set this day

into its proper motion

with that notion walking right beside me.

Dejas Vu

Everything felt familiar,

I kept telling myself I'm dreaming

and laughing out loud each time

I said it.

I came upon a town clock

and it had stopped

midday or midnight ?

I looked up at the sky and wondered.

Where was I ?

Down the street nothing moved.

The air went dark

I felt chilly

I looked around

No sound

I waited for the dawn

Nothing rhymed,

So I changed the story,

Altered the tense,

Then everything chimed,

A perfect nonsense

Feeling

My rough shorthand traces

an articulate heart,

Silver trails snail across

And around this wonder-ment,

Throbbing life,

Marvellous distribution

of life.

Post Pandemic thoughts

Wooden Ships sailing,

Mind's eye brings them into view,

Rosewood, Cherry, Birch and Ebony,

From tiptoe I can touch their edges,

Your joins are nearly impeccable.

In the hallway of my childhood home,

hung a small marquetry picture

made by an uncle,

whilst convalescing from TB

in a sanitarium,

In the fifties.

🍃

I saw a faded rainbow the other day,

Painted on a peeling wooden gate,

looking beyond it,

Up the path to the house,

I wondered at their fate.

And where did those rainbows come from,

Appearing in windows,

Whose idea was it to link

The symbol,

Children and the NHS,

Sending out a sign that

We're all in this together,

That one day the storm will pass,

And we'll be able to walk free

And are we walking free now;

So much has changed,

Dark clouds are building

all along the edge of our horizon.

We're still looking for rainbows.

🍃

Writing in retrospect is so very different to writing in the moment.

The distance of time affords a change in perspective.

The immediacy of writing in the now can allow the truth of emotions to speak.

But I didn't speak the depth of my emotions in the midst of the pandemic,

I held my breath and prayed.

I enjoyed the quiet of it.

No planes.

Not many cars.

The absence of sirens.

A tranquility born of necessity but,

I hoped,

And many others hoped,

Now,

After this,

Change will surely come.

Such a momentous time,

Surely our priorities would become clear,

And they would be for the good of all,

Including our planet home.

We lived in hope.

Rainbow's end would reveal a golden prize;

Shared vision,

Wealth for all.

🌈

During the pandemic - 1st case late 2019, 1st lockdown in the UK mid March 2020, restrictions lifted, August 2012, - anxiety, naturally, ran very high amongst us all but maybe not the few who consistently denied its severity or significance. They were more angry about the global response which they considered hysterical and more damaging than the virus itself.

I can remember feeling very sobered by the knowledge that the whole world was united in suffering and anxiety. Even if you thought the virus was ' just another version of the flu ' the global response and conflicting opinions on how to manage and mitigate the effects of it caused a different kind of anxiety I imagine.

The pace of life slowed as movement and activity was restricted,

It felt like living underwater,

Everything was arduous,

Painstaking care had to be taken with everything.

The notion of kindness arose.

This meaning consideration for the well-being of others

as well as one's own.

This was good.

But

It heightened one's awareness to the point of fear

and imbued everything with a sense of trepidation

How to live

For many of us, sleep was no longer as restful as

it might have been.

And sadly, this remains the case it seems.

🍃

My memory, never accurate and riven with holes,

When searched for the beginning of our Covid tyrant,

reminds me of the coach-loads of teenagers and their teachers,

returning from the skiing trip in Italy and putting themselves into voluntary isolation because someone had symptoms. ?

You having got a job at the college next door, was not, I don't think, unduly worried. It seemed they had been careful, and you carried on, but carefully, yourself, until, one day, after working closely with students in a classroom, ( who I don't think were much in the habit of wearing masks at that point ), you felt poorly.

How we followed the instructions to the letter.

You, imprisoned in your room,

It felt archaic as we left food and drink for you outside your door, wore gloves along with a mask to remove the tray and wiped it with the dreaded anti-bac wipes which surely must form the core of land-fill now.

At least you had your beloved cat for company. Your shadow. He stayed with you throughout.

I couldn't let you rest for worrying about you. Every hour I texted you to ask how you were feeling. Somehow, I was afraid for you to sleep, feeling that you would drift away from us

Are you drinking ? I would nag.

How's your headache ? I pestered.

Are you hot ?

I repeated the same questions again and again and you were so patient. A really patient patient.

How can it feel right to not be with you, feel your head, look at your eyes to see how you are, when you, my youngest child, are poorly.

Even when we spoke on the phone, which was rarely, I felt I missed so much from not seeing you.

Looking back now, I wish we'd set up a zoom earlier,

but perhaps you were too tired, too ill.

It may have felt too intrusive.

And I think you hid how bad you were feeling, just like when you were very little and hated fuss, refusing to take Calpol, being very quiet until you might get up and calmly walk to the toilet to be quietly sick.

In the night I would listen for your cough, look at my phone,

open the bedroom door quietly to ensure the little sound I thought I'd heard wasn't you stumbling downstairs to seek assistance.

Our stoical daughter, keeping us safe from harm.

So glad you were with us during this terrible time.

Reading and listening to harrowing accounts of people separated from their loved ones fills me with horror at what our experience might have been and though you have suffered such terrible, debilitating side-effects; the distortion of taste, overwhelming fatigue and body aches, you did recover, you ploughed on through it all, seeking help, returning to work, going out, forcing yourself to try to live your life, despite and because and eventually, to, with hope and grace, enjoy it.

Some liken your generation to the young people in the War, because, although you haven't suffered the extreme horrors of violence and deprivation ( well, hopefully, not many of you ), your lives and psyches have been deeply affected by the years interrupted by the pandemic in ways that will no doubt only be understood and recognised with the insight that comes through the passage of time.

We can only hope you are strengthened in more ways than damaged and us oldies must try to play our small part in trying to make the world a better place for you and our future generations to live in.

🌞

Rain

Everything is brought to bear.

Associations flood in, as a torrent

Gushes from the laden sky.

The rain, composed of many droplets,

Falls as a curtain,

Rippling, cascading,

Saturating the ground with its density.

So our thoughts and memories,

Images, sounds and words,

Pour through our mind and

Drench us with their meaning.

Afterwards, as the sun comes out,

Everything seems changed.

Everything ordinary has been interrupted

and the garden is illuminated.

everything is

as it should be

All is well

and I dwell

in the midst of change

All the molecules

within and without

disperse

and rearrange

the air mixing with

everything

⧞

Stream

I opened a new window

Our hands are lovely

Lost in sound

drowned in sound

found in sound

Lost inspiration

Everything expired by sound

A bird cry like stretching an old elastic band

Creak screek silence

The creak screek then

No wind, just cold.

Gentle climb

Soft gradient

Perpetuates steam

Finds me in water

Looks up for the word

Saves me on paper

These are only gradients

Putting on armours

Redstone gauntlet of Dunsline

Free gift

No location

Floats into the distance

Dusts over the trail

Buries small treasures

Papers over the cracks

On the Transpennine Express a child

Sits down in wonder

No seatbelts !!

Lost furnace.

( emptied my mind a little )