Hiraeth

Do you play in your daily life? What does ‘playtime say to you?

Daily writing prompt
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
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Do you play in your daily life? What does ‘playtime say to you?

Poesía de juego y poesía que expresa la autenticidad del ser / poetry as play and poetry that expresses the authenticity of being. For me, poetry is play. However, it is far more than just ‘play‘ – because it is a play that expresses the authenticity of my being.

I write in my journal on a daily basis. As I write, I sometimes spot little gems, thoughts or word clusters that can be turned into poems. For me, playtime is when I start to elaborate the words (signifiers) and turn them into thoughts (signified). The meaning may be the message, but the words that carry the message are the building bricks of the poetry of play which sometimes, with a happy Midas touch, turns into the poetry of gold that expresses the authenticity of who and what I am.

But play is also what I do when I paint. And sometimes I sit beside my mirror image friend, Moo, and paint with him. While Moo is great with colours, he is sometimes at a loss for words. Then I help him by playing with words, shuffling them around, until he finds the title that he wishes for his poems. Sometimes I consult, on Moo’s behalf, with other friends, and they are the ones who join in the game, and settle the dispute by agreeing upon the name that Moo will finally choose for his painting.

But, speaking of painting, there is no play better than the game of making meaning out of color [does it really matter how you spell it? ] and shape while taking a line for a walk and turning it into something playful yet meaningful. Mix and match, and stitch and patch, and then add the lines and title that ease the metamorphosis of color into shape and meaning.

There are other games I play to help fill in the daily gaps that have entered my post-retirement life. Online games of patience, crosswords, chess games with their intricate patterns of red and white or light and dark. Then their [now it does matter how you spell there!!!] are mining games when I dig deep into other people’s poetry and search among the gems of Octavio Paz, Antonio Machado, Dylan Thomas, John O’Donohue, Milton Acorn, Valverde, Quevedo, St. Teresa of Avila, Gongora, Sor Juana, Cervantes, or many other friends, their voices now silences, with whom I speak with my eyes, in order to find something that inspires me to play yet another game – hunt the symbol.

Re-reading Rudyard Kipling is a game too. “Do you like Kipling?” “No, I never Kipple.”And in books like Kim, the great game of life goes on and on, and Kipling’s signifiers (words) turn into a signified (meaning) that is warped by my creative mind and changed into my ideas of a new game in which hunt the symbol turns into the game of Brillig where the slithey troves of new words, fresh words, are reborn into my game-world and emerge from their game-whirled into my own word-play conversation with my own thyme and plaice [or should that be time and place?] And long may Moo and I play that game!

Lost

Lost

I took a wrong turn along the way
and got where I didn’t want to go.
Oh no! But there I was, stuck
in a land I didn’t understand.

Snow fell all around. No sound.
The forest silent. Trees asleep.
Snow rising higher. Ankle deep.
Obstacles. No path around.

I tried to speak. No sound came.
I couldn’t sing. I couldn’t hum.
Silently, I cried, but no help came.

I saw so many things I couldn’t name.
When I tired of playing this lost soul game,
I knew I was the one to blame.

Comment:
And yes, I have been lost. Absent without leave for a whole month – 11 November – 11 December. Where did I go? I still don’t know. I owe the above photo to my friend and Beta reader, KTJ.

Poppy Day

Poppy Day

Remembrance Day
11 November 2024

I wasn’t there
I never saw the gas clouds
            rolling over our positions
            never felt the barbed wire’s bite
            nor the bayonet’s jab

I never hung out my washing
            on the Siegfreid Line
            (“Have you any dirty washing, mother dear?”)
            never broke out of barracks
            never did spud bashing
            nor feasted on bread and water
            nor heard the rifle’s rapid rattle

I wasn’t there
            to see them carried away in carts
            coughing spluttering vomiting
            or bandages over their eyes
            walking slowly to triage a hand on
            the shoulder of the man ahead
            the sighted leading the blind

I wasn’t there
            but both my grandfathers were
            both decorated
            one mentioned in dispatches
            signed by Winston Churchill
            that one uninjured
            the other one gassed
            coughing up his lungs
            bit by bit for forty years

I am here now
    to remember
    and to honor them
           though so much
    has been lost

Comment:
My friend, the painter known as Moo, painted this poppy today. My generation, unless they served voluntarily, as many have done, was never conscripted. As a result, the horrors and tragedies of combat were never known to us, except as seen through they eyes of other people. I think of Wilfred Owen and his magnificent, heart-rending poems from WWI.
Today, I pay tribute to those members of my family who served in the armed forces by land, sea, and air. I also pay tribute to the veterans who survived, and to those who gave their lives in the defense of our country.

Exploring the Divine in Nature

Divinity

outside us or in us
the divine is always with us

green god
of the mountain ash
garlanded now
with autumn berries

lady hollyhock
and her flock
of butterflies and bees

colibri
martyred soul
reborn
as a hummingbird

our garden
a paradise
where the creator
still strolls

some of her
many faces
glimpsed
among the leaves

in this half-light
as the sun
goes down

In Laud of Light

In Laud of Light

Sun, moon, and stars
wait, day and night,
outside my window.

I sometimes glimpse
the crackling shimmer
of Northern Lights.

They crown me
with joy and pleasure,
treasures I will treasure
until the natural end
when stars, sun, and crown
come tumbling down.

I will be left alone,
seemingly naked,
yet clothed in
an eternity of light.

Comment:

Hunter Moon in Island View, NB.
Pure chance – I looked up, and there it was.
Oh to be clothed in such a glorious light!

Chuck Bowie

Chuck Bowie
(June, 2019)

We met at St. Andrews, at low tide, on
the underwater road. In secret we
shared the closed, coded envelopes of thought,
running fresh ideas through open minds.

Our words, brief vapor trails, gathered for
a moment over Passamaquoddy,
before drifting silently away. Canvas sails
flapped white seagulls across the bay.

All seven seas rose before our eyes, brought
in on a breeze’s wing. The flow of cold
waters over warm sand cocooned us
in a cloak-and-dagger mystery of mist.

We spun our spider-web dreams word by word,
decking them out with the silver dew drops
proximity brings. Characters’ voices,
unattached to real people, floated by.

Verbal ghosts, shape-shifting, emerging from
shadows, revealed new attitudes and twists,
spoke briefly, filled us with visions of book-
lives, unforgettable, but doomed, swift to fail.

Soft waves ascended rock, sand, mud, to wash
away footprints, clues, all the sandcastle
dreams we had constructed that afternoon,
though a few still survive upon the printed page.

Comment:
This is a ‘get well soon’ post for my friend, Chuck Bowie. Let us hope it gives him that little boost all artists need, when they feel a little bit down. An excellent writer, I am pleased to support his work and bring it to the attention of the readers of this blog. The poem, incidentally, is taken from my own book, The Nature of Art and the Art of Nature.

Chuck and I met at St. Andrews, on the beach, and spent a pleasant hour or two discussing both art in general and the structure and characters of this book in particular.

Was that really in June, 2019, more than five years ago, when he was resident artist at KIRA? So many tides have risen and fallen since then. So much water has gathered and flowed. Vis brevis, ars longa – life is short, but our art outlives us – long may both authors and their art survive and flourish!

A Touch of Frost

A Touch of Frost

1

Cooler nights
have brought
a touch of frost
to higher ground.

At night,
temperatures fall.
By day,
they build.

I watch as Autumn,
finger on lips,
tiptoes
through the garden.

2

With a wave of its wand,
winter threatens.

A gust of wind
swirls the leaves,
bears tufts of snow
dancing round the tree.

I watch
as my grandchild grows,
my child grows older.

She has a gentle
touch of frost,
a grey fringe
at the curl’s roots.

When I glance
in the mirror,
I see the full effects –
drifts of snow
gathered on my head.

I look
at my beloved.
Her hair –
a crab apple tree
in full spring bloom.

Comment:
Nice to add a new poem of my own to this poetry page. Today’s poem came as a result of discovering Moo’s painting – A Touch of Frost. Painting and poem, painter and poet – a great collaboration.

What are your future travel plans?

Daily writing prompt
What are your future travel plans?
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What are your future travel plans?

When Covid struck in Avila, Spain, a small walled city, the abulenses (the Spanish name for people who live there) were confined to their houses and apartments. They got their exercise by walking on their balconies, or walking around their living quarters, however small, again and again.

When I was young, I traveled regularly to Bristol Zoo. The lions and tigers paced restlessly in their cages, or else just lay there, soporific. Maybe their food contained the drugs that curbed their violence. I never asked. But I do remember that relentless padding from one side to another. In the aquarium, the fish swam around and around going nowhere. The same with the seals and the penguins. Alas, they were only animated by feeding time, when the attendants appeared with their buckets of fish. Then the animals came alive and dived, jump, swam, and responded to the food thrown to them to entertain the watchers.

And it was somewhat similar in Avila – the restless pacing, the circuit of the room, the movement to the kitchen or the fridge. Some people lost weight, but many put it on. They got up from the chairs in which they were sitting, walked to the fridge, opened the door, took out a beer or two, and returned to their chairs in front of their tv sets. Language is always renewing itself and, in times of difference and stress, we invent new words. This routine became known as El Paseo de la Nevera – The Stroll to the Fridge.

Now, as my age increases and my energy grows less, a similar thing is happening to me. I count my steps as I limp around the house, hobbling from room to room. I aim for 2,000 steps a day, but sometime manage more than that. I go out, in good weather – not raining, not too hot, not too humid – and time my walks around the garden. I am unable to count my steps when I lean on my Rollator as my hands do not move and they must be in motion, if I am to keep a record on my watch. When walking, I stay as close as possible to the shade and try to keep cool. Each day, I try to walk two or three times in this fashion. Sometimes I even manage four outings at 15 minutes apiece. Occasionally, especially if I go shopping as well, leaning on my shopping cart, I may even manage an hour’s walk or more. When I achieve my targets, I feel fulfilled and satisfied.

While walking in the garden, I do one of two things. (a) I concentrate on the flowers, the ants beneath my feet, the weeds, the moss, the birds, the way nature grows and blesses me. Or (b), I pretend I am back in Avila, or Santander, or Brandy Cove, or Pwll Ddu, or Bishopston Valley, and as I walk, I visit my favorite bars and talk to the family and friends that I miss so much and haven’t seen for so long, most of whom I never hear from nor will ever see again.

And these are my travel plans – to continue doing this for as long as possible. To walk regularly. To continue to dream as I walk. To rejoice in the sunshine of my garden. To survive – and to enjoy each moment that I am permitted to do so.

AMDG – Ad Majorem Gloriam Dei.