Memories

Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

Daily writing prompt
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
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Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
I began teaching in 1966 and continued until 2009. In those 43 years of academia, I performed on stage almost every day and gave speeches at least once or twice per class. I began as a top down teacher – I had all the knowledge, and I shared it with the individuals in the class room who had oh-so-much-less knowledge than me.

One morning, later in my career, I looked at myself when I was shaving. I looked deep into my own eyes and asked myself the vital question – “What are you teaching?” I looked at myself, razor in had. My mind was as blank as the look on my face, covered as it was with shaving soap. Then I awoke to a new world – I was not teaching a subject, I was teaching people, real, live human beings who were searching for knowledge, real knowledge, not just book knowledge.

Up until that point I had looked upon teaching in the same way as most of my colleagues did, filling empty heads with knowledge. As one of my old professors, in my first university back in the UK, once told us, after a senate house lunch swilled down with expensive sherry – “Knowledge is that which passes from my notes to your notes without ever passing through anybody’s head.”

That was the day I got down off the stage. I stopped giving speeches – aka lectures – and I asked the people in my class what they wanted to know. The answers surprised me. That was the day I began my teaching career, my real career, teaching people to become better learners, self-teachers, and hence better people. I stopped teaching my subject, and started teaching my students. I taught them how to teach themselves, how to assess the teaching material they were using, how to express themselves verbally and in writing, how to think critically for themselves, how to question everything, including me.

In short, I no longer taught them. I introduced them to Chaos Theory, how to teach themselves, how to assess their own work, how to develop the skills necessary for life-long learning, and how to love the pursuit of knowledge, for its own sake and for their own self-development.

The day I made that decision, I left the stage, retired as an actor and a speech maker, and became a teacher, a real, live teacher, of real, live human beings. It was one of the best days of my life. When I meet my former students, I realize that the stones I cast that day are still rippling round the universal pond of knowledge. Long may those ripples continue to enrich the world of teaching and learning.

Do you ever see wild animals?

Daily writing prompt
Do you ever see wild animals?
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Do you ever see wild animals?

Indeed I do. And sometimes, just like this Wapiti, or White-Tailed deer, they see me as well. Some are camera shy. But this one, caught one morning walking past my garage door, heard the click of the first camera shot, stopped, turned towards the sound, then kindly waited until I had shot him, in the only way I would ever shoot a wild animal, with my camera. Isn’t he a handsome fellow – very photogenic.

Some of the animals that pass through our yard do not seem that wild. This one lay down for a little rest about forty feet from the house. Early morning light, not easy to shoot, but he sat there and waited for me. Alas, I was using a camera with a laser focus and the red flash of the light disturbed him. I didn’t mean to do so. Whoops – there he goes, tail-up and now you know what they mean when they say ‘high-tailing it’ out of the woods and up the road.

And what about the chipmunks, and the squirrels, and the skunks, and the raccoons, and the jack-rabbits, and the porcupines? They all drop in from time to time. Look at this happy couple. Aw! Aren’t they sweet?

And don’t forget the birds – but give us another prompt – all about our feathered friends -and we’ll talk about them next time

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

Daily writing prompt
Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?
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Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

Just one place? So difficult to choose. I have been very lucky in my travels. I haven’t gone far, but I have tried to go deep, returning to the same places again and again. One place I often visited was St. Luce-sur-Mer in Quebec. It is a wonderful little town on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. The sunsets are sheer marvels and the views of the Northern Lights across the bay are just outstanding. Site of the wreck of the Empress of Ireland, it is filled with mystery and memories, as is the nearby Rimouski. Ste. Luce sur Mer would be my third choice.

Oaxaca, Mexico, would be my second choice. The city itself, capital of the state, is packed with history. I taught there for a couple of weeks (maximum six) every year from 1995-2001 and every time I returned I found something different and more mysterious. The dancing and music in the capital, the cascades of fireworks flowing down the facade of a church, the Christmas Cribs that grew day by day as people added to them, the incredible food, and above all the people – dancing in the Zocalo on Sundays to the music of the State Orchestra, crowding the markets with color, and the markets themselves, the scents of peppers, coffee, chocolate – to visit Oaxaca, in those days, was to visit the heart of Mexico. Imagine sitting beneath the tree that Hernan Cortes had sat beneath when he visited Oaxaca just after the Conquest of Mexico City – Tenochtitlan – and talked to the Mixtecs and Zapotecs of the Oaxaca Valley. And the codices – wonderful – I cannot say enough in praise of Oaxaca.

My number one choice: Avila. The lead photo shows the Toros de Guisando. Pre-dating Christianity, these four stone bulls – verracos – were often used as boundary markers by the Vettones who lived there before the Romans. One of these four bulls bears, carved into its side, the marks of one of the Roman Legions that passed this way. The countryside around Avila has to be seen to be believed. The walled city itself is a wonderland – three kilometres of walls, 9 gateways, a Cathedral that shows an enterprising mixture of styles, museums, libraries, squares, and a welcoming people who make you one of the family. I visited here for four summers, 2005-2008, staying for between 6 and 8 weeks on each visit, and always residing in the same place, El Rincon, close by the Mercado Chico.

My Knapsack

My Knapsack

Throughout my childhood,
I carried a knapsack on my back.
Into it I stuffed my darkest secrets.
Along with all my dirty washing
they filled every cranny and nook.

Words of hate, carved into my life-slate,
shuffled and cut, but unchanged,
unchangeable, remained engraved
on the tombstone I took from above
 the hole I dug to bury the casket
in which I hid the shards of my heart.

On a rainy day, when push came
to shove, I left my childhood home
to wander the world, alone, on my own.

I walked to the station, boarded a train
and never went back home again.

At journey’s end, I left my knapsack
and its contents in the luggage rack.
I never want to see them again.

Comment:
“Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile.” My maternal grandfather used to sing me this song from WWI. “While you’ve a Lucifer to light you fag, smile, boys, that’s the style.” I wonder how many people now remember what a Lucifer is, let alone a ‘fag’, in that sense of the word. It has, of course, morphed into many other meanings, some of them not necessarily pleasant. I remember my grandfather, standing in the kitchen, before the coal fire, and saying “I remember when Wills’ Woodbines were a penny a packet.” Wills’ is still with us, but may not be for much longer. I can’t remember when I last saw a Woodbine. I certainly never smoked one, in fact, I never ever smoked at all. But as for that kit bag aka knapsack aka backpack aka rucksack, well, put all your troubles in it, tie them up tight, and take it somewhere safe where you can leave it and forget about it, and then start life again. “Good-bye old friend, I am on the mend. And that’s the end.”

As for the painting, by my good friend Moo, that shows The Fall – Pre-Lapsarian / Post-Lapsarian – when all the devils, demons, and black angels were tumbled out of Paradise and abandoned to the depths below, where, alas, they still roam. So, if you meet any of them along the way, shove them in that old kit bag and get rid of them too. You’ll feel much better afterwards.

The Banks of the Seine

Banks of the Seine

Gnawing at the carcass of an old song,
my mind, a mindless dog, chasing its tail,
turning in circles, snapping at the fragment
of its own flesh, flag-flourished before it,
tournons, tournons, tournons toujours,
as Apollinaire phrased it, on a day
when I went dogless, walking on a mind-leash
before the Parisian bouquinistes who sold,
along the banks of the Seine, such tempting
merchandise, and me, hands in pockets,
penniless, tempted beyond measure,
by words, set out on pages, wondrous,
pages that, hands free, I turned, and turned,
plucking words, here and there, like a sparrow,
or a pigeon, picks at the crumbs thrown away
by pitying tramps, kings, fallen from chariots,
as Eluard wrote, and me, a pauper among riches,
an Oliver Twist, rising from my trance, hands out,
pleading, “Please, sir, can I have some more?”

Comment:
This is a fusion / confusion, if you like, of The Kingston Trio’s song – The Seine – with a quote each from Guillaume Apollinaire – Alcools – and Paul Eluard – Il ne m’est Paris que d’Elsa, and Francisco de Quevedo’s – El Buscon – and a tip of the old chapeau nouveau to R. S. Thomas and Charles Dickens. Fools rush in, I am afraid, where angels fear to tread. Go on. Rush right in. Sort it all out. I double-dog dare you – and thank you for that one, Jude.

Dark

Dark

The lights went out suddenly,
leaving me in the dark.
A cloudy night, not a spark
of starlight to light my way.

My search for candles was slow.
I found them, struck matches,
and sat at the table watching
light catch and flames glow.

A war baby – bombs, blackout
curtains, diminished light, all
are present in my DNA, and yet,
I fear the dark above all.

Like a moth, or a high plane
caught in a searchlight,
I struggle to escape from twin
siren calls: fire and light.

I sat and waited for power
to return. An hour, two hours,
three, four. Then I couldn’t wait
any more. I climbed the steep,
wood hill that led to bed.

At the top of the stairs
a plea for light filled my head
and a plea for the return
of light formed the focus
for long-forgotten prayers.

Comment:
We lost power for 15 hours a couple of weeks ago. One moment we were sitting there, after supper, ruminating quietly, with the lights on. The next, we were sitting in the dark. We found a flashlight – light but no warmth. Then moved on to candles. Candles need matches. When the ingredients were ready, we struck the matches to light the candles. These were the first three we lit.

We are so lucky. Sure, it was an awkward night. But it was only fifteen hours. We talked about the homeless, their poverty, often in the middle of such wealth, the poor who have homes, but who cannot afford to light them or heat them, the innocent victims in war zones, powerless in every sense of the word, deprived of light, heat, water, plumbing, sanitation. Our prayers that night included them as well – all of them.

The Seeker

The Seeker

Weaver of words, I wander my weary way
across a field of snow, careful as I go
not to slip and fall into the depths that wait below.

I know them of old, those man-trap mine-shafts
where darkness dwells, hand in hand with despair.
I know only too well the weight of coal dust,
fine and thin, polluting lungs with unfiltered air.

How long will I have the courage and strength
to survive so deep beneath the surface
and to explore those depths at greater length?

Who would now, willingly, plunge, or dig
and delve so deep into the mines underground?
Ony the searcher, the seeker who knows that
in dark pits wondrous gems can still be found.

Comment:
I don’t really know why, but my thoughts are now appearing (more or less) in rhyme and often in sonnets. Well, Milton Acorn’s Jack Pine Sonnets, straggly and wild, like the Jack Pines of Canada’s East Coast. Sometimes I think that this is a new format for me. And then I realize it’s where I started so long ago – a rhyming poet. “In my beginning is my end.” I have indeed returned to my roots. But now they are Jack Pine roots, well settled here in this wonderful Maritime Province of New Brunswick, amid Jack Pine, rock, and winter snow.

Doubts

Doubts

At midnight,
when that dark owl calls,
I sip a bitter wine.

The thoughts I think
are not my thoughts,
how could they ever
be mine?

And yet they are
the thoughts I think,
and round and round
they twine.

They wrap me in
a thousand threads
and none of them
are mine.

Whose are they then,
these thoughts I think?
They do not come from me.

And yet they make me
double think
this person that is me,
and who I am,
and what I am,
and where I’m going to be.

Comment:
I guess that’s what happens when you finish your bottled sunshine (sol embotellado) before going to bed. The painting and the poem match up nicely though, ribbons of dark thought streaming through an empty head. Guessing and double-guessing, thinking and double-thinking, doubting and finding yourself inside that great cloud of unknowing in which you rarely know where you are going. Still, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. Pen-y-Bont, anyone? Or Abertawe, Cas Newydd, Llandeilo, Caerfili, Rhiwbina, Treorci, Trebanog …

Old Wounds

Old Wounds


“The slow wound
deepens with the years
and brings no healing.”

The Minister. R. S. Thomas

How deep time’s wounds
have cut and carved,
not just in flesh and bone,
but in the embers
of that slow-burn fire
 they call the heart.

Memory and mind
have also played their part.

Some days, those wounds
don’t ache at all.

But there’s no real healing,
and a moment of madness,
a knife-edged finger nail,
careless, in the dark,
opens them up again
to bleed afresh
and remind us
of the frailty of the flesh.

Comment:
The opening quote, from the Welsh poet, R. S. Thomas, made me aware of so many sad things that have happened in my life. Usually they lie dormant, asleep like an ancient volcano. Occasionally they erupt, and memory’s hot lava breaks through to the surface and spills like blood. Hard as I may try to control those moments, they are, in essence, uncontrollable. The scars itch. I scratch them with sharp finger-nails, and the old wounds open and bleed again.

Magnolia

Magnolia

She stands there, at the garden gate, waiting for me.
I can see the scene, the flower beds, the magnolia
bleeding, in Wales, its soft, spring snow of ivory pearls.

Some fall on her head, crowning her with a beauty
more precious than frankincense or myrrh. Petals
also perch their pure, ermine cape on her shoulders.

She walks towards me, eyes shining, arms open.
Then, the vision fades and she drifts away, leaving me
alone, my face bathed in the tears of her passing.

For pass each other by, we did. Ships in the night,
trains rushing through a tunnel of darkness, bathed,
for an instant, in the constellation of a station’s light.

Now, when I try to go back and to recreate that scene,
I find an empty garden, fallen leaves, and winter’s cold.

Comment:
I have been struck recently by the number of published articles that speak of post-Covid loneliness and the difficulties of re-establishing old friendships that fell by the wayside, let alone establishing new ones. It seems to get harder and harder, as we age, to leave our post-Covid isolation, to get out of our new comfort zones – sometimes so limited and limiting – and to make new friends. As we age, our minds go backwards and we return to earlier days and happier memories. Yet all too often those memories are tinged with the sepia sadness of old photos, from a non-digital age, faded and stained.