In case anyone who read Boxing Day (posted on December 26th) might be envious of me enjoying glorious sunshine on an exotic beach, let me clarify that it was an old poem, and, as is usually the case, I am not the narrator.
To clarify further, this is a photo taken from the window of a train I was travelling on yesterday:
Continue reading “from a railway carriage”
This morning, I waited in the half-light for a bus that finally arrived 40 minutes late: there was no one about, and the only noise was the rain, an occasional car and a few birds. It gave me plenty of time to think, though it was too wet to get a notebook out to try and capture any of the ideas.
(I suppose I could record memos on my phone, but how you’re supposed to skim through an audio file later, I don’t know.)
Mind you, I actually believe that writing a thought down too soon can ‘fix’ it before it is ready, and I may carry a phrase or image round in my head for days or weeks, occasionally even years, before I finally anchor it to the page.
Continue reading “grey’ku”
I’ve mentioned bonfires a couple of times in the last week, and I reckon half the village have been out in their gardens, taking advantage of the sunshine and what, for many, is a long weekend. They haven’t all been busy at the same task, though:
Clear
above the bitter smoke of bonfires
the scent of new-mown grass
I was particularly surprised by that as my lawn looked like this until about midday:
Continue reading “seasons”
Jungle-blossom fungi
cluster around tree stumps;
the air smells of woodsmoke
It has been attributed to me, and the poem is available online, so I don’t think there’s a big problem. I do, however, wish that they’d contacted me and told me they wanted to use it. After all, it’d be nice to be told they thought it was good. Equally, it’d be useful – though not as nice – to know if they were using it to demonstrate what /not/ to do.
I don’t seem to have posted it on the blog, so here it is:
Continue reading “in the woods”
don't confuse the narrator 