Singing as the darkness lifts 09/10/2023
Last night I predicted that the morning’s air would smell like mint and when I opened the front door it did! A sunny weekend had spurred me on to catch up in the garden. First, I cut back the herbs in my next-door neighbour’s garden and then I tackled the mint border in ours. We had put the mint in to slow down the ground elder which it had done to a reasonable degree, but I guess I now need to keep on top of the mint. There was a lot of it and knowing that the garden waste bins were pretty full to the brim I sensed they would scent the air. A single crow called from a distance away and my eyes began to see the world a little more clearly. I must have had strange dreams last night as I was unsettled at first this morning and I took a while to unbleary myself. I am grateful to that crow for that familiar call to wake up.
On Thursday it was my first National Poetry Day not in a school. The day coincided with my second ‘Meet the Maker’ session and this gave me the perfect opportunity to offer people that I met a choice of two poems. I didn’t really have a poem that totally connected with this year’s theme of ‘Refuge’ so instead I chose ‘Darling’ and ‘This Was Once a Good Poem’. When asking people what they wanted I said, “So, I have a free poem for you today for National Poetry Day and you can either have a poem called ‘Darling’, or a poem about conkers.” By the end of the day the score was 25 to conkers and 24 to darling. There was a definite period of time in the middle of the day when ‘Darling’ had overtaken conkers, but at the beginning and end of the day conkers got the votes! I loved it when people stopped to read the poem they chose and commented on it. I enjoyed spreading the word of National Poetry Day.
In the evening I attended a hybrid event online and saw the poets that had been chosen by Caroline Bird read their poems. The poems all appear in a Poetry Mosaic. I particularly loved this poem by Elizabeth Gibson:
Sometimes you quietly realise you are living your dream
I
recently learnt that I can melt cheese under my oven grill.
I lived here three years
with butter and jam on my crumpets.
Now, I watch cheddar and mozzarella bubble and spread
across fruit bread, teacakes, pancakes, whatever will take it.
I
have my very own place – rented, yes, a shoebox in a stack
of shoeboxes in the middle of a city – but I have grilled cheese.
I have a washing machine that leaks, but washes my clothes:
the suit I bought when I realised I just could, my plaid shirts.
I
have an exercise bike. I don’t report to anyone, just turn on
the radio, gulp water, cycle my legs and dance in my head.
I have my fairy lights, my cheap little blue lamp by my bed.
I have a fridge of soy milk and raspberries and dark chocolate.
I
kiss the walls whenever I move in somewhere, and whenever
I leave, but that doesn’t seem enough this time, here. All night,
cars whir like the sea, up and down our hill. Trams honk like geese.
I trace the perpetual light behind the blinds, and I know I exist.
********************************************
Yesterday, the editing began on my second collection. It felt good to look carefully again at the words, listen to them out loud and to enjoy the laughter along the way. I will be excited to see the book in the world in 2024.
This week sees the second part of my coaching course and my first in-person poetry reading and I look forward to seeing how all that goes!
Here's to all the singing as the darkness lifts.
Seascape 2023.
A blue finger painting on mdf that was dry just in time for ‘Meet the Maker’.
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