Ringing the changes
Linda Rushby 11 April 2020
through the turn of the seasons,
promising summer.
Day 11 – Bluebells
Day 10 – Wallflowers
I am now seriously, seriously pissed off.
While out in the garden weeding, I had an idea for a poem for today which I typed into the laptop so I wouldn’t forget it, then emailed to myself so I could access it from the PC.
When I came to upload it a couple of hours later, the attachment opened in Google docs and I looked at it and thought it was pretty pathetic. Then I had a brainwave of how to change the third line to make it a bit better, but when I tried to edit it, I fell foul of the same problem I described in my post this morning. Then by the time I had opened it in Open Office I had forgotten what I was going to do to improve it.
So, I decided I would just post the original version, and explain all this, which I duly did, typed directly into WordPress rather than in Word (which is what I usually do).
Copied the ‘poem’ into the post, formatted it as a poem (which didn’t go too well), looked at the preview, chose the categories, pressed the publish button, then changed my mind about something (now I can’t remember what). Tried to get out of the ‘publish’ menu, but when I tried to press the ‘x’ to close it and get back to preview, for some reason it kept flashing to another menu. (I think that the curser had got too close to the top right hand corner of the window and it was trying to open the Profile editing window, but there seemed no way I could close the other one if you see what I mean).
I tried to go back a screen, assuming that the post had automatically been saved as a draft (I’m sure that’s what usually happens), but apparently not, and I’ve just had to explain all this all over again.
And I nearly published this without copying the poem in again.
Wallflowers,
Linda Rushby 10 April 2020
with their fiery colours
bringing the power of summer
into a sad and fearful spring.
Day 9 – A Strange Road
I stepped onto a strange road
and oh, the excitement of knowing
the not-knowingness of the world.The future an empty page.
The adventures I planned,
and those that I hadn’t.
The paths that I travelled,
the places I saw,
the people whose paths
crossed with mine.Then one day I stopped,
and looked around
and saw there was no one
who made me their centre,
their lodestar, their true heart.I have known
the devotion of children
the whispers of lovers
the kindness of friends,
and I’m grateful for these.But only one person
Linda Rushby 9 April 2020
can fill my void
and I must learn
to be that one.
Day 8 – Pest Control
Pest Control
The moon approaches,
Turning its bright face
Towards its ailing parent.‘Hang in there’ it whispers,
Linda Rushby 8 April 2020
‘The treatment is working.
You’ll soon be relieved
of this wretched plague.’
Day 7 – A Day Without a Poem
A day without a poem.
Linda Rushby 7 April 2020
A year without a celebration.
But another year of life
may be the greatest gift.
Day 6 – Breakfast in my Garden
Nothing too heavy today. Got the heavy stuff out of the way in my earlier post.
Breakfast in My Garden
Half an avocado, and home made porridge.
Linda Rushby 6 April 2020
Toast and honey, and a second cup.
Sun on my face, and cat at my feet.
Birds in the tree, and bees on the flowers.
All these moments bring me joy
in the midst of the madness.
Day 5 – Circle of Friends
Circle of Friends
Three months ago, or thereabouts,
a circle of friends sang songs of hope.Knowing we must part,
knowing we would meet again,
but not knowing when.Knowing there would be hard times,
not knowing what.Knowing we would all find joy
not knowing how.Another year, another song.
The memory of that evening comes to me,
Linda Rushby 5 April 2020
and makes me smile,
for the time when we will meet again,
and touch, and hug, and maybe kiss,
in the place that joins our hearts.
It’s good when a poem comes like that, when I was getting dressed, and making coffee, and feeding the cat, and taking pots from the dishwasher. So that by the time I sat at the keyboard, I already knew what I was going to say.
Sheesh, if only it was always that easy!
Can I get away with that today (at least it’s not a haiku!) or do I have to keep on writing? Well, I set the rules, so I guess I can do what I like.
Day 4 – A Hopeful Haiku
Hope comes with the spring,
Linda Rushby 4 April 2020
blossoming despite our fears.
The bees are happy.
Connections and Constrictions (but no poem)
Why do I always come up to my study to write my blog on the PC? I don’t know – there’s no reason why I shouldn’t sit downstairs and write on the laptop. I’ve been working on here for the last couple of weeks, finishing off the book design job because I have software on here which isn’t on the laptop. So it’s habit, I suppose, sitting here feels like I’m doing something serious (as if).
The two poem lines I started with yesterday, I was questioning them before I even sat down to write about them, then I got carried away down tunnels of memory and snatches of songs which made me think of other things. But the distinction I initially made in my head – of a net that links versus a web that binds – was always a bit of a false dichotomy, because a net, just as much as a web, is designed to trap whatever blunders into it. I was thinking more of a net as a network, a positive kind of connectivity, which links us with the necessities of life. As a corny example (no pun intended), the connections between people through the supply chain for food – farmers, processers, distributors, retailers, cooks – ‘field to fork’ – even that’s a gross simplification, which can be extended indefinitely in either direction, with microlinks in between. (Note to self: ‘Chain’ is another monosyllabic word, but when you think about it, that too can imply constriction as well as connection.)
There’s a lovely quote, (I think it’s from Martin Luther King), about how by the time your food reaches your table, it’s already travelled half way round the world. Though that’s not such a good thing is it? There was a time about twenty years ago when I used to get incensed about air miles – even had a letter published in The Times about it – but as always, nobody listened.
Which reminds me – yesterday I invited people to like the FaceBook page which is linked to this blog, but quite honestly, if I keep drivelling on like this, won’t I scare them all away? As I’ve tried to explain to a friend who was encouraging me to share my writing more widely, I can’t always guarantee to write ‘the good stuff’, and I don’t see the point of just trying to pick out the odd sentences that ‘work’ and sharing them out of context.
But on I go, and here I am again, pumping up the word count. Guess I should try and write another poem today, only four days in, ye gods, how am I going to do this for a whole month?
Connections and constrictions – that’s the point really I was trying to make. And perhaps the two are inseparable? Anything which supports us breeds reliance, holds us into a familiar position, if only by imposing a sense of reciprocal obligation. You scratch my back…? ‘We’re all in this together… ‘ at a minimum distance of two metres, naturally.
A Poem That I Meant to Write
‘The net that links us
Is not the web that binds us’
Linda Rushby (unfinished)
I thought that was going to be the start of a poem, but after an hour of rattling around, nothing else has appeared. So now I’m sitting at the keyboard, and – I don’t think this has struck me before – although I usually write as I go directly on the computer (which is why my posts ramble quite as much as they do), it doesn’t work that way with poems. Mostly they come into my head fully formed, and then I have to write them down before I forget them – like a line from a Paul Simon song of 50-odd years ago :
‘I was twenty one years when I wrote this song.
I’m twenty two now, but I won’t be for long…’
Paul Simon, ‘The Leaves That Are Green’
You said it, Paul. And the first time I heard it I was even younger – sixteen, I believe – though the song had already been around for a few years. I think it was the first time I grasped – or at least caught a glimpse of – an adult understanding of the passing of time. That and Neil Young’s ‘Old Man’ from about the same: ‘I’m twenty four and there’s so much more’. (To me at that time, even twenty seemed impossibly mature).
How did I get here from there? Oh yes, ‘The Leaves That are Green’:
‘Once my heart was filled with the love of a girl.
I held her close, but she faded in the night
Like a poem I meant to write
And the leaves that are green turn to brown.’
That one: ‘Like a poem I meant to write.’ Exactly. If you don’t grab them while they’re there, they get away from you – Poems, I mean, not girls (or boys). I wrote once about ‘catching the words in flight’. It may be in ‘Single to Sirkeci’ or it may just have been a blog post. It might be the one I wrote in Tulcea, on the Danube Delta – which would have gone into ‘The Long Way Back’ – if I’d ever got round to finishing it. Or maybe it was just a random, throw away blog post that at most a handful of people might have read.
Do poems matter more than people? That’s a bit contentious – though once out they’re out there, they can live forever – I’m not claiming this for mine, I hasten to add, but I was thinking of the likes of Wordsworth (whose birthday is next Tuesday – I have a reason for knowing that which some of you might work out), Ovid (who was exiled to and died on the Black Sea Coast at Constanta, from where I went to Tulcea) or even poor Sylvia Plath (enough said). Even mine will still hang around for a while after I’ve gone, out on the internet and in unsold copies of ‘Beachcombing’. Some have already lasted far longer than the relationships that provoked them – but that’s another matter.
Of course – a haiku!
‘When we are ourselves.’
Linda Rushby