Collaboration

Questions

Questions

Jackpine Sonnet

each time you see a shooting star
a child is born or an angel falls
swarms of them in certain seasons
when our planet sails through
the meteor belt and rocks burn up
as they fall to earth through air and fire

written in the stars they say
and everyday I read my horoscope
to see what lies in stall
or rather what fate will me befall

warmth and love perhaps yet what
do cold unconscious planets know
about this life that people lead below

Eros Agape Philia
Jupiter Mercury Venus Mars
who knows what ancient
Greek and Roman gods
still play at being gods
among so many drifting
shifting shooting stars

Comment:

So, Moo is back to painting, at long last. Last night he painted two paintings to celebrate his return to a lovely clean, neat, washed, rearranged workshop desk that a certain KTJ tidied up for him. He was so happy. I could see him bouncing up and down on tip-toe, trying not to fall over with excitement. He even got to wash his brushes and ensure that all the remaining ones were solid and good.

“Back again,” he sighed. And that’s exactly what he painted. Of course, in the course of time some of his paints have dried up and a brush or two needed careful separation, fine squirrel hairs from dried paint. But with a little elbow grease and a lot of luck everything came together.

This time, I had poem that fitted Moo’s painting. It explores the idea that everything can be found in the heavens. Fray Luis de León phrases it this way –

Es más que un breve punto
este bajo y torpe suelo comparado
con aquel gran transunto
donde vive mejorado
todo lo que es, lo que será, lo que ha pasado?

Is it more than a brief speck
this low and clumsy earth compared
with that huge universe
where lives in betterment
everything that is, will be, and was?

Well, what a load of questions and all based on 16th Century Spanish Neo-Platonism. Yet old as the system of star reading is, people still read their daily horoscopes. Well, some people do. I guess they think that in the same way that the moon rules the tides and pulls them this way and that way, then the moon and stars rule our bodies – we are, after all, 95% water – and pull us this way and that way.

But hold on a moment. Nature or nurture. And what about free will – libre albedrío? Are we ruled by the stars? Or do we have free will to do as we want in this little world of ours? Good questions. What we do know is that certain people think they can do whatever they want, with no repercussions or consequences whatsoever, while others understand that certain societal norms and rules are there for a purpose. Oh dear – the eternal question. If the stars and planets know what we will do and when we will do it, can we speak of free will or are our lives pre-determined!

I guess Moo’s painting is more than a Who’s Who Zoo and more a who did what and with which and to whom zoo combined with when and why did they do it. “Alas, if thy mother knew it, sadly, sadly would she rue it.” And now’s the time to De La Rue it – so get out those playing cards, shuffle them carefully, read your fortune, and let’s see what is going to happen, and how, and when. Or you could read tea leaves, Viking Runes, or the lines on the palm of your hand. Speaking of which – question – what is the first sign of madness? – answer – hairs on the palm of your hand. Question – what is the second sign of madness? – answer – looking for them. – and you did, go on, admit it, you took a little peek, didn’t you. I know you did – it was written in the stars, and in the Tarot pack, and … and … and …. did you find one?

Riddle-me-Ree

Riddle-me-Ree


What does the kettle whistle
to the grandfather clock
and why does its pendulum
call the kettle black?

A chime in time saves the cuckoo
just before it flies before our eyes …
and in August, fly it must.

Does anyone know how thyme
tells the time and whether or not
the dandelion clock
will learn how and when to chime?

Deep in a Gower Cave,
a woolly rhinoceros weaves
a web of time
on his mother’s knitting needles.

Beside him, in the rock,
a neolithic clock is fast asleep.
Was it Bill Haley put that rock
around the clock?

“You’ll never know,”
rings the sea-bell
tolling on its tidal surge,
“and I don’t have the urge to tell.”

Commentary:

Moo loves a riddle – that is why he fills his paintings with some many strange half people and animals that look out and King Lear at you. Mad as a hatter, is our Moo, especially when he’s feeling Moo-dy Blue. Moo is visually strange and now he is encouraging me to be verbally strange. So I took up the gauntlet, accepted the challenge, and road Nexus, my old dobbin, down to the end of the jousting lists, up with my lance and shield, and off I go.

Luckily Moo doesn’t know what I am talking about and he doesn’t have a dobbin anyway, let alone a lance. So, there he is, sitting on the sidelines, flicking paint at me with his paint brush. “The brush is mightier than the last,” he said. “Here’s mud in your eye!” And he must have been to PEI, because the mud was all red.

Alas, the Field Marshal thought I was bleeding, so he waved the white handkerchief and told me to leave the field of combat before PEI was swept away and vanished under a tide of big red mud along with Bud the Spud. And that made Stompin’ Tom stomping mad. “He might at least have used ketchup,” he cried, “because ketchup loves potatoes.” I found out, a lot later, that he had actually betted some money on me and was furious because he lost it.

“Never mind, Tom,” I told him. “Jousting isn’t the best game out there, and not every day does the best knight win.” “Hmmm,” said the Man from Skinner’s Pond. “I guess I could write a song about that. I think I’ll call it The Good Old Nexus Game. Nope. Doesn’t sound write. Jousting game? Nope. Hockey – that’s it – I’ll just go off, get my guitar, and tune up the old stompin’ bored.”


Railway Station 2

Railway Bridge

1

walking away
from Swansea sands

me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals

a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform

the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge

I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke

filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal

sting and stench
and that short sharp whistle

they linger and cling
unforgettable
in my mind’s dark corner

Railway Bridge

2

walking away
from Swansea sands

me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals

a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform

the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge

I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke

filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal

sting and stench
they linger and cling
unforgettable cobwebs
in my mind’s dark corridors
and never forget
that short sharp whistle


Comment 1:

Me and my writing buddy also discussed linked poems. This is simply a chain in which each poem links back to another one. Yesterday, we wrote about Swansea Sands and how the poem was generated. Today we can look at the linking between that poem and this one, the old railway bridge that crossed the railway lines by Swansea Bay Station, and led back into Swansea, a town in those days, and the Civic Centre. Note, now, that each of those names could generate further links, further poems in the chain.

When we think of the great chain of being, we think of how all things are linked. From the Great Western Railway (GWR), to the Mumbles Railway, to the Cline Valley Branch line, and beyond. Each poem a railway station along the way. Main line, branch line, express train, goods train … links everywhere, and each link encapsulated in a memory of one kind or another. How could we not write poetry about such things?

McAdam Railway Station, in New Brunswick, Canada. 60 trains a day used to stop here. Now the station is a landmark, a memory, a place where ghost trains run and shadowy figures run wild up and down the grass grown tracks where the sleepers sleep, their dreams undisturbed. I could write a book of poems about this station. Wait a second, I already have and Geoff Slater, my painting buddy, decorated it for me with his wonderful paintings and drawings. What more can I say? Each link in the chain, a potential poem. Each stop along the way, material enough for a painting, a poem, or a book.

Comment 2:

So, what happens when we change the photo? What if we add a branch line or two to the original poem? How does this affect our idea of creativity, poetic creativity? What happens when we add a different sketch from my painting buddy’s wonderful set of drawings? Oh-oh, that’s not my painting buddy – that’s a set of graffiti on a passing railway car. Sorry, painting buddy, please forgive me. But hey, wait a minute – de gustibus non est disputando – there is no arguing about taste. Somebody painted that box car and enjoyed doing it. Where does art begin? Where does it end? How formal can it be? How informal? How many railway stations do we stop at? I guess it depends on the length of the journey. But one thing I know, don’t get off the train until you reach your destination!

Railway Bridge

Railway Bridge

walking away
from Swansea sands

me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals

a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform

the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge

I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke

filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal

sting and stench
and that short sharp whistle

they linger and cling
unforgettable
in my mind’s dark corners

Comment:

Me and my writing buddy also discussed linked poems. This is simply a chain in which each poem links back to another one. Yesterday, we wrote about Swansea Sands and how the poem was generated. Today we can look at the linking between that poem and this one, the old railway bridge that crossed the railway lines by Swansea Bay Station, and led back into Swansea, a town in those days, and the Civic Centre. Note, now, that each of those names could generate further links, further poems in the chain.

When we think of the great chain of being, we think of how all things are linked. From the Great Western Railway (GWR), to the Mumbles Railway, to the Cline Valley Branch line, and beyond. Each poem a railway station along the way. Main line, branch line, express train, goods train … links everywhere, and each link encapsulated in a memory of one kind or another. How could we not write poetry about such things?

McAdam Railway Station, in New Brunswick, Canada. 60 trains a day used to stop here. Now the station is a landmark, a memory, a place where ghost trains run and shadowy figures run wild up and down the grass grown tracks where the sleepers sleep, their dreams undisturbed. I could write a book of poems about this station. Wait a second, I already have and Geoff Slater, my painting buddy, decorated it for me with his wonderful paintings and drawings. What more can I say? Each link in the chain, a potential poem. Each stop along the way, material enough for a painting, a poem, or a book.

Distancing and Narrative Layers

Winding dirt path through misty forested mountains with conifer trees
A winding dirt path stretches through mist-covered forested mountains at dawn.

Image generated by AI

Ryan and Don Roger

8

Distancing and Narrative Layers

            In DQI, VIII/8, the author suspends the narration, leaving Don Quixote and the Basque with their swords in the air, frozen in time. The cliff-hanger, as it is often called, is not unknown in literary fiction, and yes, most normal human beings will want to know how this battle ends. However, read on – “But the unfortunate thing is that the author of this history left the battle in suspense at this critical point, with the excuse that he could find no more records of Don Quixote’s exploits than those recorded here.” Enter the second author – “It is true that the second author of this work would not believe that such a curious history could have been consigned to oblivion …” Would you believe it? We now have two authors a first one and a second one. So, would the real author stand up please?”

            Before he does, we have another little diversion. DQI, I-VIII/8 is only the first part of Don Quixote. We read at the beginning of DQI, IX/9 that “In the first part of this history, we left the valiant Basque and the famous Don Quixote with naked swords aloft …” So, logically, DQI now has two parts – DQI, Part One and DQI Part Two. Clearly, we are dealing with a novel that is writing itself, constructing itself, and changing itself as it creates, re-creates, and rethinks itself. More, “our delightful history stopped short and remained mutilated, our author [singular] failing to inform us where to find the missing part. This caused me great annoyance.” Fascinating. Please tell me, if you know, who is this me? It is a me who cannot understand the lack of a conclusion to the story he is reading. Indeed, he must now go seeking the sage who wrote this story, for all of these stories – historical records – chronicles – archives – journals – registers now forgotten – must have had a sage enchanter who recorded them.

            And this is how that sage was found. The first-person narrator “I” visited the Alcana in Toledo. There he bought a parchment book written in Arabic. He finds a translator who, on reading the book, starts to laugh at the mention of Lady Dulcinea, “the gest hand at salting pork in La Mancha.” This parchment becomes these books, and at the beginning he found the following: “History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, Arabic historian.” The first-person narrator then took the Arabic translator to his own house and there, in less than six weeks, he translated the history from Arabic into Spanish.

            The Ariadne’s thread that will lead us through this labyrinth goes like this. Cervantes (author), becomes Cervantes (first-person narrator), becomes Cervantes (commentator), who offers us the translator’s version, of the History of Don Quixote that was originally written in Arabic. Clearly a series of barriers between the author and his creation have been built. Everything is now deniable. And doubly so, since “if any objection can be made against the truth of this history, it can only be that its narrator was an Arab – men of that nation being ready liars.” And note that both Cide Hamete and the translator are Arabs – a double dose of distancing to protect our noble author from the long arm of the Inquisition.  

Book Burnings

Hooded figures holding torches surround a bonfire of burning books and scrolls.
A group of cloaked figures stands in a dimly lit stone courtyard as they burn ancient scrolls and books in a large central fire.

Image generated by AI


Ryan and Don Roger

5

Book Burnings

            In 1492, the Spanish Jews were given the choice of conversion to Catholicism or of being expelled from Spain. Many chose to leave. Those who converted, and remained, were kept under constant supervision. In an effort to stamp out their faith, their books were condemned to the flames by the Spanish Inquisition. A similar burning of the books in Don Quixote’s library occurs in DQI, 6. Is book burning effective? Some people think so. Other people aren’t so sure.

            The Spanish conquest of Mexico, led by Hernán Cortés, concluded on August 13, 1521, when Spanish forces and their native Tlaxcalan allies captured the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and emperor Cuauhtémoc, marking the end of the Aztec Empire and the beginning of Spanish colonial rule. The country was then called New Spain. 

Mexico is famous for its codices. These are fan-fold picture histories, drawn on vellum covered with gesso, of tribal conquests, social norms, tables of the gods, in fact a whole cultural and historical record of pre-Hispanic Mexico. The Zouche-Nuttal codex, for example, sets out the conquests of Ocho Venado / Eight Deer, nicknamed Garra de Tigre / Tiger Claw, a Mixtec warrior, who lived between 1063 and 1115. Five of the Mixtec codices survive. Many, many more were burned. The cover of the Vindobonensis shows the burn marks where some daring person pulled the codex from the flames and saved it. Without such saved codices, we would have much less knowledge of pre-Hispanic Mexico.

            Why is this anecdote important? Because prior to the invention of printing, in 1474, manuscripts were written by hand. Yes, some were copied, but many copies were single and unique. Burn the manuscript, destroy the knowledge it contains. Post 1474, with the printing of multiple copies of books, the individual book might be destroyed, but some books would survive from the printing sequence. Apply this to Don Quixote’s library and we note several things. First, Don Quixote’s copies are destroyed. Second, other copies of his books survive elsewhere. In addition, although Don Quixote’s books are burned the ideas in those books survive in the knight’s head and he lives by their rules. Those ideas are spread throughout the history of his adventures to everybody with whom he comes in contact. Conclusion – you can destroy the books. You cannot destroy the ideas that those books contained.

            Ray Bradbury, in Farhenheit 451, describes the burning of books in his dystopian novel. 451F incidentally is the temperature at which paper burns. The books are burnt in Bradbury’s world, but the book people survive. The book people are those who memorize their books and are able to quote them from memory and pass them on orally to other people.

            And people protect their books. How? By placing them in small rooms within their houses and walling up those rooms so that the books could not be found. This happens in DQI, VI – 6. Don Quixote awakes, goes to find his library, but it has disappeared. The housekeeper swears that a sage enchanter descended on a dragon and the library vanished in a puff of smoke. Don Quixote believes the metatheatrical lie and acts as if it were the truth. He then bemoans the fact that he is pursued by malignant sorcerers. These evil enchanters will pursue him throughout the novel whenever he wakes up from his illusions and is faced by reality. Clearly, the sage enchanters have robbed him of his moment of glory (illusion) and reduced him to sorry (the truth).

            Curiously enough, a 16th Century walled-up library was found in a house in Barcarrota, Spain not so long ago. The books were hidden, probably from the Inquisition, so that their owner could escape prosecution. The discovery sheds light on how individuals hid literature from the Inquisition during the 16th century in Spain. It also illustrates how closely Cervantes followed the reality of his times when writing the Quixote.

            You can destroy books. But it is very difficult to destroy the ideas they contain. In this fashion, although the burning of that one book ends the life of that particular volume, it rarely ends the life of the ideas contained within its covers. We might not recognize the names of the characters that Don Quixote quotes from his memory of those histories, but many of the people who encounter the knight during his adventures know them and remember them. Amadis of Gaul is never dead, not when his name lives on. The same is true of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. King Arthur is said to fstill be alive and can be seen in the shape of a White Crow, bran gwen, in Welsh. And even Walt Disney knew, and profited from, the legend of the sword in the stone.

We will also see, as we continue our journey, that in the same way that tall oaks grow out of small acorns, large parts of later events found in the Quixote already have their seeds sown in these early chapters. Metatheatre, illusion and reality, authorship and censorship, truth and falsehood, waking events and dream sequences – and that is just the start.

Wild Life

Wild Life

I see green grass
Small ponds
Winding roads
Patches of sorrow

Turquoise blues 
Hills to climb
Softness
Strength 

Flowers blooming
A small animal
Covered in feathers 

An eye
Keeping watch
Purity of white

Ekphrastic Poem
©
Yolande Essiembre

Comment:

My good friend Yolande Essiembre sent me her Ekphrastic poem after viewing this morning’s painting by Moo. Wild Life II is a better representation of the colours of the original. However, Moo added in some (what he calls!) helpful touches – the black shapes that reinforce the suggestions of the original. Yolande wrote her poem based on Version I – but with the stronger colors of version II. Magic – oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. And all artists weave their webs of deceit. As Cervantes says – Tanto la mentira es mejor, cuanto más parece verdadera. / The closer it approaches the truth, the better the lie.

Imitatio – imitation – one of the bedrocks of classical rhetoric. “Imitation is the best form of flattery”. Flattery, yes, but what we find, in art above all, is that there exists only one original. However good the copy, the flattery – the imitation, if you prefer – it is never as good as the original. The original of this painting exists in one time and one place. The two deceptions are not the original. In fact, Wild Life I no longer exists because Moo has repainted it. It has turned into Wild Life II.

So many questions – which version do you prefer – I or II? De gustibus non est disputandum. There is no arguing about taste. Which is the better version? Well, each viewer must choose. But remember, each version is a deception, and each deception is a lie. And there is only one original. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

But we can, I hope, agree on one thing – Yolande’s verbal version (which I publish here with her permission) is verbally picture perfect. It is how she sees the painting. It is what the painting means to her.

Thank you so much Yolande. Moo and I hope to publish your words and visions more often. With your permission. we will do so.


Clepsydra 41 & 42

41

… fire flares on the water
     rivers and lakes blaze
          that sound is a monster
               a dragon descending
                    breathing fire

so swift so powerful
     come sudden
          from nowhere
              yet another disaster
                   with its ravenous roar         

the dragon refuses to move on
     until sated
          but who could satisfy
               that monster
                    destroy its will
                         defeat its power

will Lac Megantic
     ever be the same
          after all these years
               of grief and tears

will fading memories
     be all that remain …


42

… a stillness between words
    tranquil movements
         the world suspended in space
               soundless the night
                    drenched in silent light

 Aurora Borealis
     draws gaudy curtains
          across the night sky

I can hear my heart beat
    as time softly sifts

a celestial hour glass
     this sky filled
          with unimaginable light
               breaking coloured waves

lit up
     with mysterious flowers
          so graceful
               when decked out
                    in light

 the moon returns
     turns into a mirror

          its silver boat
               suspended in space

silent its light
     enlightening
          the heart’s dusky craters

dawn’s silent glory
     will be here soon
          pointing the silent path
               to even more light …

Commentary:

Ten years or so since the disaster at Lake Megantic. I am sure it affected everyone who followed the news, saw the pictures, and bore witness to the power of conflagration. Moo offered me his painting called Burning Birbi. A Birbi is a Koala Bear in one of the Aboriginal Languages. When the fires hit New South Wales, the Eucalyptus Trees started to fire. When in danger, the Birbi climbs the eucalyptus trees, higher and higher, followed, of course, by the fire. A fate inescapable. Just like the Megantic Disaster. Word has it that it could, and should, have been prevented. I cannot (will not) comment on that here. I will just stress the fear that we all have, those of us who live in a drought stricken province (New Brunswick) surrounded by trees.

The closest wildfire to us, in Island View, was about 31 kilometres away. The closest trees are about 30 feet away from the house. Much too close for comfort. Curtains of flame and smoke, rising up to stain the skies. And the smell of burning also inescapable. Stay indoors, I say. Shut the windows. And hope that nothing comes your way!

Fire, controlled, brings heat, warmth, light. The Northern Lights bring spectacular light flooding down from the skies, not rising up. You can almost hear the sky crackling as the light curtains shift and shimmer and dance their way across the horizon. Fire and Fire Light – beautiful when we can control them, but oh-so-destructive when they flame and flare, out of control.

Do not despair. Just remember we need each other, all of us, each one of us. Together we can overcome most things. Isolated and alone, like the lone koala at the top of his tree, it is much, much more difficult to survive. Select your friends carefully. Maintain contact with them. And be there for each other in times of need, for, as we say in Wales – “a friend in need, is a friend in deed.”

Clepsydra 39 & 40

39

… all too soon I too shall move on
     leaving behind me
          fading memories and cloud shadows


yet I recall
     standing beneath the cathedral’s
          great rose window
               on a sunny day
                    my body dressed
                         in a harlequin suit
                              of glistening lights 

in such splendour
     mortal things like words
          cease to flow

I held my breath
     shocked by an enormous presence
          that filled me then
               as it does now
                    with the knowledge
                         that nothing happens in vain …

40


… illumination
     I must find it for myself
  were another to tell me
      where it dwells
            its light would be untrue

only I can strike the match
     ignite the flame
          and trap its warmth
              in my body’s bone cage

when it flowers within me
     I’ll need no candle
          not even in the darkest mine

in Alma, I have seen
     the tide lower
          Fundy fishing boats
               down into the mud

like those boats
     I lack the power
          to resist both time and tide …

Commentary:

I asked Moo for a painting of boats from Fundy, preferably from Alma, lying on their sides at low tide. “Let me see what I am meant to be illustrating,” he said. He read the above excerpt from Clepsydra and told me “You’re navel gazing again. I thought I told you not to do that. Now, have I got a painting for you.” I didn’t dare refuse to post it – he’s had a bad couple of days and it has sharpened his sense of humor – so it’s here it is. Moo calls is – now don’t laugh – Naval Gazing.

“Nothing happens in vain.” So maybe I was predestined to ask Moo for a painting he didn’t have and to end up with one that tickled his fancy. Now that set off a light bulb in my skull. Mr. Dimwitty came to his sense – I have been navel gazing. Naughty, naughty. How many of you remember Mr. Dimwitty, the not too bright schoolmaster on BBC radio? Hold up your hands, and I’ll count them.

Meanwhile, things happen to Moo and me, and like the boats on the Fundy, we lack the power to resist both time and tide. And that’s why we help each other, carry each other along. “We few, we few, we band of brothers.” That was Shakespeare. Nowadays we have to say “we band of siblings.” It pays to be inclusive. Speaking of bands, I saw a man walking down Main Street yesterday, blowing a rubber trumpet. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was looking for a rubber band. Joy to the world and help spread the joy. If you don’t like joy, spread Marmite. And if you don’t like Marmite I am sure you’ll love Vegemite. Ma might, but Pa won’t. That’s why it’s not called Pa-mite.

Raven

Raven

When Raven flies through his trap door in the sky, a light bulb clicks off in my head and I fall into darkness. Is there some safety net before oblivion? Raven’s claws scar crow’s feet on a fingernail moon. His bleak black beak widens the hole in my head and the Easter egg of my skull shows thin blue cracks. Outside my window, the river moves backwards and forwards with the tide. Raven shrugs at cancerous creatures, promising nothing. He soars into clear skies in search of his private exit and extinguishes sun, moon, and stars, plunging our world into blackness. The light on the point picks out a heron, mobbed by a clacking ring of gulls. The sea mist wraps the real world tight in its cloak. Now sea and lighthouse, heron and gulls, are distant things of memory. Raven, shoulders hunched, stands like a stone, an anthracite block hacked out from the coal seam in my mind, hand carved from feathers and my forefathers’ blood.

Commentary:

I had forgotten all about this poem in prose. It comes from Fundy Lines, if I remember correctly. Photo credit (below) to one of my former students, an excellent poet herself, who took the trouble to locate the correct rock and then take a photo of book and rock together.


Moo thought his painting of a dark shape that looks a little bit like a bird of ill-omen would be just what this prose poem needed. Maybe he’s right. I trust him with his choice of paintings. Well, most of the time anyway. He can be a bit ‘off’ from time to time, but mostly we form a good team, especially where Surrealism is concerned.

I guess Raven formed part of my Surreal sequences. I really do enjoy Surrealism. The mixing of metaphors, for example, the unexpected meeting of a sewing machine with a carving knife and an umbrella on an operating table. And look what Raven’s up to. He discovers a trap door in the sky. Well, that would be very useful, if we had wings and could fly. Then he turns off the light bulb in my head. I didn’t even know I had one in there. I guess Raven, like coyote and zopilote is a bit of a Trickster. Next he changes into a woodpecker and widens the hole in my skull. Poor old me – avian trepanning – no wonder I have problems! My head becomes an Easter Egg and has cracks in it giving birth to what? Some mad ideas, I guess, pecking their way out into the wonderful world in which Moo and I live in perfect harmony with my beloved and our cat. And look at all those Welsh mining memories – lignite, house coal, steam coal, anthracite, jet – and remember, when the coal comes from the Rhondda down the Merthyr – Taff Vale line, I’ll be there.

It will be a long way from Canada to Taff’s Well. Maybe Raven will be kind and fly me there, through his Island View trap door that has direct access to the trap door just above Castell Coch, the Fairy Castle of my childhood. That would be faster, and easier, than my old two-wheeler Raleigh bicycle with it’s Sturmey-Archer three gear click on the handlebars. I bet Raven can fly faster than I can pedal. And if I could have pedaled as fast as Raven flies, downhill and uphill, I would have been King of the Mountains and an all time winner of the Tour de France. Now that would have been surrealistically surreal, seeing me as a cereal winner, with my snap, crackle, and pop! Not that my dad would have been happy. He never was happy with anything I did!