POEMS TO MATCH A TEATOWEL
This morning I have to wait for the cool breeze to blow towards me. When it does it brings rosemary and grass. Before that the first scent hanging in the air is curry powder and spices, and I remember clearing the out-of-date jars and stacking them in the recycling box by the front door.
At text says this week’s photo is a stuffed animal in the air. This is true, but I also say it is Ronnie jumping for joy and somersaulting on the promenade at Prestatyn. It is also a celebration of a moment in time and the sea in all its churned up grey-brown glory.
A coastal walk to blow the cobwebs off is always on my list of self-care things to do, and this week’s trip to the seaside did the trick. I like walking in my local town, and I like walking in the forest nearby, but there is a particular joy to walking at the coast that delights me. The fresh air, the sound of the waves and the ever-changing view as the tide comes in or goes out offer the kind of refreshment that reaches mind, body and soul.
My brain felt as though it was crammed full of ideas this week as I set about writing some new anniversary poems. I have always loved my anniversary tea towel which shows me the traditional symbol for each wedding anniversary, and I have enjoyed choosing specific presents over the years for my wife that match these. However it was when I was asked to write a poem for a husband to give to his wife on their jade anniversary that I became determined to do more anniversary poetry writing. I was flattered to be asked and to be recognised as a poet who could turn their hand to such things and I crafted the words carefully. This then got me thinking about using poems as small gifts or for cards for people I knew. They were well received, and I felt myself at the beginnings of a slowly evolving project. I recently had the opportunity to bring the jade poem to a different couple, and then when I was working on a different poem last week I had the idea that it would be super cool to have written a poem for all of the anniversaries. A great idea, but when I slowed down a little I realised this doesn’t exactly tie in with the way I write. I need time and I had to shake off my feeling that I wanted them all done in the next couple of days like a set of Pokémon ready to be collected. And of course there is more to it than preparing the poems. On my website each digital download sits behind a ‘label’ and it was making these labels that sent me into a whirl of believing I sort of knew how to do it, asking Kath to remind me how to do it, doing it successfully and then needing to change a background colour and promptly forgetting how I had done it! All that kept me amused for quite some time and perhaps that puts into context why a walk beside the sea was the perfect treat this week.
Thinking of the properties of some metals and precious stones while writing this week set me thinking about the poem I wrote early on in my MA. It featured in A New Manchester Alphabet, and because I asked my brother to tell me some facts about graphene to enhance my scientific knowledge before I set to work it became a love poem for him. And because I have shared this poem on my blog recently, I will also include a poem about 316L stainless steel (also not on the tea towel) which was first published in a Molecules Unlimited Anthology.
Here’s to all the poems that celebrate moments and love.
Graphene
Perhaps, before their pencil, in that building
it was in me – that flat form carbon atom;
hexagonally
honeycombed
undiscovered and waiting.
And before that, did it come from a star?
Maybe it was once
inside you.
You are a study in graphene:
cleaved graphite, harder than diamond,
stronger than steel.
Exceptional.
L Stands for Low
316L stainless steel – a love poem
They say you can’t be easily damaged
that you can be bent into different shapes
and forms.
But before they take you to the sea
they need to consider
how submerged you might become
and whether you will let yourself
be rinsed by the rain.
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