original poem – Page 94 – don't confuse the narrator

widdershins around the reservoir

reservoir mist — The sun peels mist from the water

moving mountains

After the storm,
the river drops to reveal
new mudbanks;
slowly, the mountains
are coming to us.

(No, there are no mudbanks visible in the photo, which is actually the point at which my local river is dammed to form a reservoir. But hopefully it brightens the page a bit.)

We’re still having intermittent internet and phone outages, and still waiting for them to change the poste at the end of the garden – which is riddled with woodworm and carpenter bee tunnels – and, hopefully, install a new cable at the same time.

This morning, having glimpsed a red squirrel run across the road ahead of me, I was reminded that last time we had problems, the telecom guy blamed las ardillas. He re-strung several lengths of cable before we realised that in fact someone had cut through the cable while trying to tidy up the excess ivy. (However much I complain about the telephone company, I’ll admit they were more than reasonable when they didn’t charge us for that.)
Continue reading “blame the reds”

autumn

It’s the first day of autumn, and last night there was a harvest moon. That makes me think I should be posting some poetry, but I can’t find anything particularly suitable.

Still, the weather really is quite autumnal today, and if it stays this way, it wouldn’t surprise me if the swallows started gathering early for migration. I’ve had telephone wires and communications on my mind a lot recently, so maybe this will fit the bill:
Continue reading “autumn”

of love and toothbrushes

in the glass beside the sink
my toothbrush
kisses yours

Having come across the above snippet in an old notebook, I was reminded of a definition of true love.

I couldn’t quite remember it, though, and it’s taken me nearly an hour to track it down; it wasn’t Shaw, as I had thought, but Somerset Maugham, in The Constant Wife.

Maugham’s works are presumably still in copyright, so not so easy to find on-line, and although I have the complete short stories and a couple of novels, I don’t have the plays. Finally, though, I have found the piece I was looking for.
Continue reading “of love and toothbrushes”