poetry

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Island Blog – Do You Remember?

I walk today in the Tapselteerie woods. After a refresh of rain, after yesterday moving through a thick of tourists and shoppers, there are no Excuse Me’s here, no need. I am alone amongst the hidden faeries, the ground-dwellers, the dripping leaves, alone in the glorious, yet musical silence, even though it isn’t silent at all, not with all this dripping and faerie chatter. There’s a thrum from the soft ground, I can feel its rhythm through my soft shoes, my toes connecting with the gentle buzz of conversation, nature speke. I stand awhile to listen, just stand, to take in the peaty smell, think ‘whisky’, laugh at myself, the sound caught up in the air, held in the massive branches overhead, then released back into silence. I see a broken limb, a huge one, and put my hand on the beech bark, murmer something, a thank you. You are old, you are fallen, I see you. My fingers, gnarled and bent look like my mum’s now. I never saw that coming, but nor did the beech limb, thrust out wide, fighting for light, tangled in it, too far, too high, too ‘out there’ to survive.

I move on and out of the woods, the only sound my rainproof jacket (awful noisy things) and begin my walk home. There’s a mist across the sea-loch, a smokey rub-out, a loss of definition. Everything is lush, green, ebullient, a disguise. In winter everything is clearly defined, the start and the stop, the contours of rocks and hills recognisable like a something laid bare, naked, a woman without make-up, just woken. I slow my pace. The rushing in me is like a burn in spate, a river, even, a tidal flow and this is not always a wonderful thing. I know that my life required a great deal of rushing, but not now, yet still I rush. To slow, to sit, to wander, to ponder, all can feel like anathema even as I see others who can and to wonder why I cannot.

I think back to the fallen limb, to all the fallen limbs I have encountered throughout my years among the Tapselteerie woods, as an islander. I remind myself of all the moments I have calmed and gentled others in turmoil; how many times I have heard said that my bright spirit has uplifted a falling soul, how many I have welcomed in with warmth and light and music and ideas. And then I remember how easy it is to forget the legacy of what I have given, of the who I am, of the how I eased life, of the when I showed up, stood tall, made laughter a bridge of opportunity for another. I did that, and I forget that.

I’m home now, and writing this, but my mind scoots back to the old beech. She gave and gave, proffering her strength for a ‘great place for a kiddies swing’ as she pushed and fought for light within the canopy. She struck out, braved herself, gradually over a long time, silently, determinedly, proudly, independently. I did too.

And so did you. Do your remember?

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Island Blog – We Just Are

Thing is, if I don’t write, I begin to feel uncomfortable, as if my knickers are back to front. It’s been a few days, not the knickers though. Enough on knickers.

My thinks are nonstop, even when thinks should be fast asleep in their beds. Some of us are like that, born as ‘troublesome’ souls, too many thinks. I, and many like me, have been, and. still are, accused of overthinking. Accused? My point, precisely. I’m not going to say the us of we ever asked for all this tiddleypom in our brilliant brains which, inevitably result in a brouhaha the world finds ‘troublesome’ because it breaks the silence of complicity. And can be messy. I, for example, can see a wardrobe anywhere, in a shop, a garage, an anywhere and immediately think Narnia, my mind heading into another world, way beyond the rigid limitations of living in this one. If I see a track lifting up and away in a wild place, and disappearing around a corner, I want to follow. There be opportunities out there, although maybe not dragons, unfortunately, and my thinks lead me on.

However, life is here, and my imaginatory thinks, the possibilities out there, need to be turned into a module (that’s me) acceptable to the where of my life. So I walk among trees. I stand beneath their astonishing height and strength, think how brave they are. And I thank them, talk to them, tell them, every one, how wonderful they are. They found their way within a chaotic dynamic, seeds earthing, sprouting, lifting into a density of an already canopy. Light is a fight for them, for us too. I stand awhile, although my ‘awhile’ is about fifteen seconds and that’s because of the thinks. I have watched people stand for ages, yoga, mediation, all those things I can’t do because I am my thinks. I must be moving, shaping, changing, learning. I am a seeker and knowing that is oftentimes a pain in the ass. I have tried, am still trying to corral my thinks, but they are wild and free and the goodling about them is that I get to see what many do not. In a wild sea, I can see the depth, feel the anger, sense the history; In the woods I can hear the trees groan; in ground that was once free and is now a clickfit home, I can hear the rumble of all that is now trapped. None of it is loud, but I sense it as I walk by, even as I like the friendly people waving from their new home.

Hallo to anyone else out there who knows what I’m talking about. We are. That’s it. We just are.

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Island Blog – The Hello Thing

I get them all the time. Caught up in my own diary, agenda, timing, thoughts, projectory, that Hello Thing whips in like a tendril. I don’t feel trapped, nor asphyxiated, but there’s an alert there, something I cannot see, hear, nor negotiate with, an announcement inside my car, my kitchen, at work as I turn to lift clean plates onto a stack, or as I turn a corner a bit wild because the track is clear and there’s a big fun in the swing because the sun is stacked bighigh and just around the next corner, and all I can hear are swallows and geese speaking languages I would love to understand. The Hello Thing arrives like a majesty and right in my head. I have done a load of thoughting about the Hello Thing, over years, over many of those long lasting buggers and there is no denying they are random spirits, nothing to do with the upright correctness of my life, anyone’s life. Hence the random element. It does wonder me, as I remember, fractionally, my teenage years, and those years are most definitely the ones least listened to. A big mistake, right there.

The alerts, the Hello Things I dissed in those teenage years and way beyond, when I was married because the others in the room apparently never got them, and were, obviously, threatened by such, are my friends now. I believe there is a wisdom out there, way beyond me and there to guide, advise, caution. I have learned to listen, to be aware. Thing is, it doesn’t matter a bloodline, siblings, a past fashioned, all of us have the ears to listen to the Hello Thing. I believe it is a beautiful connection to the beyond of us. I have never heard anything destructive in any of my Hellos.

I met one or two today, as I pulled out from my work at the Best Cafe Ever. Yes, we all get weary, as a trickle of coffees and easy cakes erupts into a diasma of soups, quiches, warmed this, decaf that, herbal teas and ‘we’re in a hurry”. I could hear the uprise of voices, all upbeat, all choosing, all laughing, all on holiday, from my hidey-hole in the wash-up area with two deep sinks. The Hello Thing shoved me out, by my skinny butt. Don’t play the old card. , Get out there. I heard it, I love it.

You know what? Getting old does not mean a folding. Does not mean stop. Does not mean I Can’t. I don’t say this lightly. There is always fight. There is always the Hello Thing. Always. It’s a twist in thinking, a sudden realisation, the arrow shoot of a truth, the flip of a treaty, the crumble of a known road, the words of a person once respected. The determination to be whoever you are.

All I will say, is listen, and pay attention.

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Island Blog – A New Beginning

I started work today, at a new venture, or an establised venture, now in new hands, which means it’s new. btw. Moving into a new place, even if the venue, the stones and location are the same as they ever were, a newness is created. There are new ideas, changes, alterations, a personal stamp stamped. I always love new beginnings, have no problem with change, mostly speaking. We greeted, checked out the lay of the land, heard the ideas, decided to be dynamic. Let us go, I thought, as we did just that. I knew it before, the way it works, the flow and rhythm of what had been the been for yonks, shifting its gaze into a new sky. This, I said to myself, is a be. Not a been…… and I am in.

We worked, and hard, and busy, fixing, trixing, laughing, sharing, sticking, unsticking, wiping, washing, tide-fighting, tide-aligning, talking, finding out about each other, watching, checking. We are creating a new dynamic. There are wonderings, doubts, fickle-twiddles, stopstarts, upskittles, solutions flying in like birds through newly sequined window panes. Tables – juxtaposition, chairs too, wall hangings yet to be wall-hanged, or not, lights to be twisted this way, that, this something to be considered, this something else to be moved, or removed, all a considering, for now. It’s like a birthing, and I am at the business end. I have no idea what I am doing, beyond the obvious, the cleaning prep work and the beyond of the dance of mischief I will always bring to anything. However, there is no fun, nor mischief (interesting word if you. break it down……mis…..chief…….just saying) if there are no-ones to work with, to laugh with, through tricky stuff, when this isn’t working well and that isn’t working either.

We had fun today. My first day. I loved it. I’m as tired as the others, but so excited to be a part of this new beginning.

I thought I was all out of those, to be honest!

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Island Blog – To Evince the Singular

Here’s a Friday laugh for you, but, first, the backstory…….I love a backstory, me.

I have a small corn on my pointy finger, my DO NOT SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY EVER AGAIN, finger. My Go To Bed finger. My No Way finger. My I Love You finger. To be honest, this finger is exhausted with all the work I have required of it over many decades. However, it still works on the keyboard, over the ebony and ivory of my piano keys. It can also, still, stop a bus. It can still say I See You, without a single word. It can say Go! but only when required. It can also remind me, once turned, that I am seen, I am important, beautiful in my years, wrinkles and all, that I am still someone. It can also remind me of mistakes. Ok, that’s the backstory done.

In my dealing with said corn….(who on this goodly earth has ever had a corn on their pointy finger?) I read up the dealings with such an irritation. It hurts to sew, to knit, to push down a plug, to twist a cork. Sandpaper, I was advised. Well, blow that slow process. I need quick fix. I need to be well, to be able, to be fit in all areas, including the sticking out bits. So, I dashed (I did) up the stairs to locate my heel rasper. It’s a grater, in truth, big metal sharps in a rectangle with a. goodly handle. I rasped, and rasped and found relief as the endless layers of skin disappeared. It felt good. I can still point, after all. The remainder of the digit is still active and responsive. Until…….

I tried to log in to my laptop. Now, there’s a thing. It seems I have eradicated my fingerprint. Will the skin know how to grow back in the same sworls? Who knows? There is a chuckle in this, and I am chuckling. What will be, as I have always known, will be, and the best I can do is to discover new ways around every single blockade. I’m glad I learned this. I may, momentarily, be stuck with a gasp and a panic in my throat, but it never lasts. We are so much more inventive than we know. Our brain knows it too. It’s just longing for us to catch up.

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Island Blog – Hallo You

I’m watching high-flying gulls cant in the wind. The gusts are punching down here, pushing over open-mouthed wheelies or sending them into a scuttle down the track. Trees bow and bend, whipping around as if to protect themselves as they feint and duck as best they can. Unlike gulls, eagles, anybirds, they, like us, are somewhat pinned to the earth. It thinks me, as I look up at the majesty of soaring. Even the clouds look bonkers, scudding like ducks, splitting from cumulus into wisps of rejection, only to disappear into the white light. What thinks me is this. How strong we are. How tough, how resilient, and how we can rise from any threat to our lives. Even loss. Even bereavement. Even the darkest of times.

This is one of those times for those I know.

I know we aren’t birds, we can’t fly, we can’t lift nor dynamically rise as if not caring a jot, nor would that ever be a human thing. We are grounded, thus we care. We are rooted, thus we care. Enter confusion. Sorry….Confusion. Someone precious was just there, weren’t they? Wasn’t she? Well, hell yes, all loud and bubbling over with music and energy and fabulous clothes and a feisty mouth and the look of a pixie with mischief on her mind. And, now, she has lifted away. I doubt she is flying with gulls, although she may be, but she is definitely a flyer. Where might she be? Over forest, mountain cold, desert hot, or skimming down an ordinary street somewhere, juking, diving, canting, lifting? She leaves so much love down here, a rising warmth to lift her into the whatever. I don’t know what I believe about the next bit, but the big shut-off idea does nothing for me. I’m a hoper. And, as the sun pushes the damn wind away, for now, shining my windows into a murky embarrassment, I smile.

Hallo you, darling you.

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Island Blog – Someone or No-One?

This is something I performed once. It begs a performance. There is rhythm, rap, and begs a reading out loud.

Wherever you grow, bloom strong and petal wide, don’t hide but spread your colour, blue is it, or red, or butter yellow, white? Be right with it, your colour, it is yours alone. Hold your own, make it known, alone, not lonely. Only you know your ground. It may be rocky, maybe rich and soft, a mountainside, a beach path, garden, grey street, river bank. Give thanks for wherever you find yourself. Hold out your petals, reach and reach up to the light, breathe right. Your breath is life, in joy or strife, breathe on. In shade or sun, you are the one.

Make a difference. Have fun and look around you. Who grows beside, or over there? Another soul with hopeful roots just pushing through in fear, perhaps, delicate heart, easily broken by careless feet or the lash of punishing rain-words, to die in silence. Cry out in anger, but stand your ground. For those who stand will remember the ones who fall. All of them.

And share your light, your bright, your coloured heart, still beating like a drum on the battlefield, and there, don’t yield, but glow with life and, tender-fingered, lift a drooping head. Warm a faltering body. Say ‘I am here, and I will not leave you’. Share your mystery, your very soul. Hide nothing, let nothing cold you, hold you fixed in ice or fear, as if the end is near.

Notice every season, but not too much. Touch another, lift, don’t drift, for Time moves on, fleeing like a thief in the assault of misbelief, no crime committed in the touch. Some of us long for touch, not much to ask, small task, withdrawn through fear and that worldly slime, the snake of self-doubt, out with you, damn spot, you are not the true voice, my choice, I touch.

Hold each blooming moment, roots in the earth, head in the sky. Let pain go by, toss it to the wind, the changeling wind with stories on her back. And, remember this. Never miss the chance to lead another to the dance. Show your light. Be curious, like Alice, and leave your smile among the trees for the bees to honey up and sweeten. Reflect the sun, the rain, the moon. And do it soon, because you know that a winter of the soul will come, and, for some, it is already here. No matter your ground, make it better for your being there, nourishing, flourishing, sharing, caring, thankfully placed just where you need to be to learn something. Let laughter fill your throat and let it fly out like birds or butterflies to smile a flagging soul up and out of sadness, and to spin their own bitter into glitter. A million rainbows lie within you. Let them show, because you know, no matter the chatter, that you have the power to choose.

Am I someone, or no-one?

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Island Blog – Birthday, Trees, Luck Dragon.

Today is Friday 13th December. I know you know that. For some, both the date and the day bring collywobbles. Such a lost word, and a good one. Moving on. It is memoric for me, for our family, because it is a birthday. This boy was born in a frickin snowstorm and in an old folks home on an island because that is what there was. He spent his first few days in Matron’s bottom drawer. He survived all of that and is now a spectacular man, husband, father, although I leave his family to qualify any of that.

As for us, the we in Africa, in the sunshine, far distant from the birthday man, from the minus degree thing that’s going on in the homeland, we moved easy. An early walk, barefoot and skimpy clad to the Indian Ocean, to watch the Luck Dragon/ big dog bound and bond with a load of other dogs and owners as the whapshuck of light-lit waves, the height of walls, pounded onto a slop sand beach. Boom, and boom as the cusp curved and smashed against shell and stone, rounding into gentle . Such is a massive ocean, whispered in, or blocked by the resolute rocks of centuries, and the ocean will respond, raunchy and irritable, banging against resistance, with an attitude I wish I had learned.

We did our own work for a while, a morning while. Let’s walk again. This time among trees. I get that, the need for trees, and not the scrub trees of the bush, bent into an apology, but the huge wide-spread oaks and fever trees and pines and others with fat trunks and an eye on the sky. It’s Friday and we just can go, permission given. And we do. We load up the Luck Dragon and we head for the trees. It’s a drive, traffic is a Friday thug, but we get there and we walk through the space and the silence and the water and the trees and we forget the traffic and the tension and the demands of life and we grow silent. We watch the Luck Dragon welcome every other dog, enchant everyone who sees his smile and his permanently wagging tail.

And we drive home, the echoes of our time under the trees, beside the water, within the peace, still holding us in stasis.

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Island Blog – Misty, Clarity, Beyond the Veil

Dark morning – yes, of course, with this nonsensical time change thing. I watched the clock dilemmas, worked them out, poor confused things, as light annihilated the dark, blinding it. There’s a misty thing going on across the sea-loch, a sort of translucent mesh hiding the pines, the backsides of hills, a strip, moving, lifting, expanding, thinning. A bit like a bridal veil. I never had one of those, but they are pretty. You can see eyes, a vague facial shape, the red of a smile, if there is one, and there usually is.

The mist has retained her veil control, all day. I walked in it, not through it, noticed how, what was clear before, is more of a shimmy, a sort-of, a possible. The autumn colours, fallen or yet branch-held, were bright, as the artist in me might have made them so, with a good gloss medium over oils. Nature does it without any of that tiddleypom.

This evening, the sky is pinkling strips, reaching down, very soft pink. Gone now, the mist, the veil. Now clarity. It thinks me.

From the bridal veil to clarity. Take this lightly. I am no misery guts about relationships, but what I have learned over long time, is that if we look for another to fill the big darkness within, we will always be disappointed. It is up to each one of us to find that hole-filler within our own forgiveness of the past, of self, of whatever damaged us. That clarity will show us more than the backside of anything or anyone, and we will stand strong as one who can see beyond the veil, as the person we really are.

We can play misty a whole lifetime, or we can be brave and stand up and say, No More. I have no frickin idea who I am, but I do know who I am not. A good beginning, I would suggest.

I love the mist, to walk through it, the touch of its fingertips on my skin, the gathering of it on leaf fall. I also love clarity. I can do both. Beyond that contusion, I can heal.

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Island Blog – Itchy Knickers, Mary, There is Life

I send my mind out into the world, and pull it back quickquick. The thinks, the sheer expanse before my mindal eyes, the troubles I can’t even spell, rise into a swirling fog. Maybe a good thing. I know about the corruption in governments and want to smack all of the leaders. Did your mummy not teach you anything? In the pull back, I focus on the immediate, on where I am, on who I am, on this very minute. Oh, that’s easy. Let me think. Ah, instead of sinking into my current bog, let me find another someone who might love to hear what I I think of them. Avoid superlatives, an early lesson from my English teacher. It hesitates me. Superlatives are basically lazy speke. Amazing. Wonderful. Excellent. The Best. And so many more. They’re like uncontrolled dribble to one who considers how much spit goes into intelligent consideration. A little at a time, that’s how. And those superlatives can apply to a packet of crisps. Just saying. Hallo, I begin, You are just short of amazing. Let me find the word (that is just short of amazing). Doesn’t work.

I think that navigating a world where language and street rules change so fast has never been easy for me. I’m the girl, now woman, in the wrong kit. I remember arriving to a poetry challenge at school, all elecuted up, strong voiced and in itchy knickers (uniform), wondering, as I did, how the hell all those other ‘gels’ managed to look part of the landscape. I saw many smirks and although it irked me, I longed for whatever bonding they had with a) their itchy knickers and b) their ability to be an easy dot in the pattern. I could see the connection. And then, there was me, all tumbelshift and awkward. Or that is how I felt. The fact that I was chosen for the poetry rendition, that I came away with the silver poetry cup, meant zip, at the time.

In this time, the autumn of my life, I kind of get it, mainly because if I don’t get it now, what hope do I have of ever understanding the point of me? A rhetorical question. Looking back to that super lost, itchy-knickered girl, I smile. I have found my people, here, on the island, for sure, and that has settled me, given me place and point, to a degree. Perhaps, as my lovely wise sister-in-law told me, it isn’t wrong to feel out of kilter, as she may have done. Rest in peace Mary.

Sometimes I scrabble for purchase, when I see others step out in confidence and the furies rise in judgement against me. Their eyes are wild and bright, their confidence evident and overwhelming, but I’m a daughter of the moon and the tide, I (whine) tell them. I continue, itchy knickers and all, I feel everything, sense so much, notice every tiny shift in this breaking world. I don’t know how to explain anything, have no shape nor map to guide me, but I feel it, see it, hear it, all of it.

I remember Mary saying to me, once, way back when she was vibrantly alive and wise as Merlin, that I would have been in danger when any girl or woman who sensed moon change, tidal shifts, changes in nature around them, people becoming irritable, a slip slide into anger, a rise in the river, was doomed if she spoke out, or was noticed noticing. I am thankful that, nowadays, writers write about those who can see the beyond, and anyone can btw. We just have too much noise and too little belief in our skills.

On the cusp of a flight to Africa, I watch the skies, the moontide, the chat in the clouds, the copper comment, the wild shapes. I see the raindrops held on branches, like showing off as the sinksun sequins and sparkles. I see the straggle of shrubs, climbers browning, the flood in my garage. I feel the rainwater, the hill rain under my bare feet, the chill of concrete. I feed the woodburner. There is life and I feel every moment.