writing and writers – Page 164 – don't confuse the narrator

first day of autumn

I really intended to post this yesterday – on the last day of summer. It’s a glass half-full or half-empty thing.

We’re always so keen to be moving on to new beginnings, I though it might be good to dawdle a bit, like the river is doing at the moment.

Unlike the year we moved here, when I heard the water through the open windows on the first night and thought it was pouring with rain, this year the river is very low and practically silent.

So, however inconvenient the heavy rain is, I’ll have to hope for a wet winter. Or a very cold one, so there’s plenty of snow to thaw and fill the rivers next spring. (See what I mean about always wanting new beginnings?)
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early autumn

It’s September, and, with its usual regularity, the weather has changed and it begins to feel quite autumnal. We’ve had a few storms recently, which have brought down yet more windfalls.

professional – and other – skills

I have a profile on the LinkedIn system and regularly receive updates on what changes have been made on the profiles of people within my network. This morning I found this in my inbox (the two lines refer to the same person):

tree-ku

Muppet-haired willow
tosses her head
at the coming storm

I think it’s Animal that she reminds me of – the crazy drummer – though her hair obviously isn’t the right colour.

stars and doves

I don’t have many more shooting stars poems to post on the blog, but there are other things being celebrated this weekend, as well as the perseids.

It’s been several years since I’ve spent August in Spain, as I’ve attended the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School, both as participant and as course leader, since I first won a place some years ago.

Before that, though, I was living in Madrid, and August was important en mi barrio for la fiesta de la Paloma. This year, Monday 15th August will be a fiesta nacional (la Asunción de la Virgen), and in her honour I have dug out this old poem. It was first published in the New Entertainer, I think, when I was writing my Capital Letters column:
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