It’s Bank Holiday weekend. Not May Day weekend, as it should be; nor yet “Spring bank holiday”, as I thought it might be. It’s simply “Early May bank holiday”, an anodyne phrase with no dangerous political connotations to offend or inspire.
It poured with rain half the night and is still damp and unappealing outdoors and uninspiring indoors, so I thought I’d brighten things up with some recent photos.
I’ve posted this poem before, but this time I have a photo to go with it.
Lacemaker
You sit, bent over the pillow;
beaded memories
click back and forth.Deftly, you weave silk threads:
over, under, twist and hitch;
under, over, pin and twist.Beneath your fingers
a brass forest grows
shrouded in gossamer.
(In the photo, the forest is silver rather than brass, but I think it still illustrates the point.)
Continue reading “it’s complicated”
It’s April 23rd and there are a number of things to celebrate, so, I’ve gathered together some bits and pieces from the blog archive. First of all, it’s World Book and Copyright Day.
Underground literature
A spotless Stephen King
sits opposite Dostoyevsky
on the metro. The Russian
looks a little down-at-heel:
his jacket, once expensive leather,
is now worn and shabby. Sadly,
he is only a translation. Beside him,
a paternal-looking businessman
holds tight to Harry Potter, while,
further down the car, a little girl
in a blue frock, frets and scuffs
her round-toed sandals. Defiantly,
her bare arms clutch Lewis Carroll
to her undeveloped chest.
On a recent walk, I saw a squirrel dart across the path and run up into a tree. When I looked up through the bare branches, I could see his tail splayed wide – presumably to give him better balance – and was struck by how closely it resembled the catkins of the pussy willow.
I posted a photo of a rabbit last week, but it wasn’t a very successful one as the bunny’s colouring blended so well with the undergrowth. I gather that this blending into the background is crypsis (as opposed to mimesis when the creature disguises itself as something else).
Here, then, is a less cryptic rabbit:
Continue reading “seeing and not seeing”
don't confuse the narrator 