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A GREEN CARNATION (Episode 90)

  A GREEN CARNATION  

 

This morning the air holds the scent of oak and blackbirds are sounding their alarm calls.

 

Alt text says this week’s photo is a green object on a white plate. Kath says it did look better at the time. I say it is a twenty-three-year-old green carnation that will forever be one of the romantic things that symbolises me meeting my wife.

 

I was thinking about what it means to step into new things this week and perhaps this flower is a very good reminder of what can happen when you take the plunge and just do something. I loved that a woman I had never met said she would be wearing a green carnation and would meet me in a bar at 8pm on a Wednesday. I laugh at the fact I thought I was being helpful by saying I would wear a badge, but didn’t say that it would be on the hem of my jeans. I also laugh that I was thirty minutes early so that I could make sure I saw her walk in.

 

My thinking about being brave this week centred around finding an invitation from Kate Jenkinson to be a guest on LinkedIn live for her regular feature POETs Day. I have always wanted to be invited to such a thing so I said yes, did a little happy dance, and then contemplated what I needed to do to make sure I felt brave!

 

To get in the room I needed to channel my inner jaguar and remember the joy of being 10% braver. A grateful nod of thanks here to Rebecca Cuberli and Jaz Ampaw-Farr. Rebecca for the time and space to deeply explore my metaphors and Jaz for the idea of being 10% braver. Once in the space I could enjoy being the playful cat. 

 

Sometimes I still worry that I won’t know what to say or will run out of things to say when sharing space with others, but I am much better at answering that voice since coaching.  And talking one to one with someone is pure enjoyment for me so it’s well worth stepping into these spaces. I hold on tight to the knowledge that the best conversations give us time and space to be our authentic selves, and that is glorious. 

 

I had no idea it was International Pineapple Day until Kate mentioned it in her LinkedIn post and I loved the serendipity of the fact there was a poem on my desk with pineapples in it. I took this along to share, and I must say that being described as “The Perfect Guest”, was a wonderful comment to tuck safely in my confidence pocket. If I hadn’t had a poem I would have taken a tin of pineapple from the cupboard and celebrated that, but the poem was just the thing for a poet coach to take along. Kate and I had a wonderful chat about poetry and coaching and it put an extra sparkle into my Friday.

 

The poem was on my desk because Louise Longson had invited me to be one of her guests for her poetry event ‘Last Saturday’. This invite also widened my knowledge of celebration/commemoration days and I chose to follow up on the following themes that Louise mentioned when writing to me: World Sand Dune Day, Insect Week, Armed Forces Celebration Day and Pride. It felt good to put together poems to match the different themes and try them out together in a zoom room.

 

I will definitely be returning to the event as an avid listener because the range of readers that Louise brings together is superb and the format and length is just right. One hour or thereabouts of quality words beautifully shared. I also look forward to finding out which other calendar days are noted and celebrated, and I get the feeling it might inspire me to write a poem if I don’t have something suitable to hand.

 

Here's Trawling on A Day’s Leave which sets down on the page what my Great Uncle once set down as a part of an oral history project. It was also pinned to Reculver on the Places of Poetry Map in 2019.

 

 

TRAWLING ON A DAY'S LEAVE, 1943

 

Too waterlogged to haul over the side

even for the strong arms

of you and your father.

 

You roped him to the boat,

tied him on the stern for towing behind.

He couldn't be left to float;

he needed to come out trawling,

the dead man.

 

You took him with you to catch the tide.

For the living, for the food.

 

As the boat picked up speed

you couldn't help but watch the almost enthusiastic

movement of his legs as he rode the waves

the three long miles to Reculver.

 

Back in town, the pineapples you brought from The Azores

were lined up in shop windows for all to see

while you delivered your German airman,

a line of bullets across his back,

to the coastguard station.

 

 

 

 

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