Fragments of Old Notes.

When the sea is as soft as a lovers touch,
its embrace a gentle kiss, a fleeting moment…

November Swim.

The storm has arrived here on the West coast of England, the rain bouncing of the kitchen roof. We shall see how the country fares overnight. It won’t be the snow that hit the USA last week, just rain and wind.

This fragment, line from an old notebook, we’re sorting rooms out after returning from France last year. I have my notebooks out at the moment. An interesting exercise to look back and see the things written, try to remember the moments that produced certain ideas, ways of thinking. Do I recognise myself? Not really, time and tide to continue the metaphor, have moved quite a bit.

Just a short post this evening, pondering on what happens next, how this will continue this year. Plans and hopes, who knows what will come along to confound us with chaos. Just enjoy the ride and keep smiling.

Advertisement

Spring

Flowering Cherry

It was a weather spread bet this morning. Rain, chunky hail, wind and sunshine, the only disappointment was the lack of snow. We’re starting work on a major revamp of our kitchen this week, never underestimate how much soil a hole can set free. I think two bags appear for every one we fill.

I’m working on spring, hence the fist view of the flowering cherry in our garden. I noticed the fist blossom high in the tree a few days ago, and these have joined the party. I’m trying to catch the sunrise gold over this tree, glorious as we sit with morning coffee and look out of the window, it always raises the spirits to see it lit up with amazing colour.

---

I am dipping into some old work and starting re-writing, I bumped into this and like the opening though it obviously needs a lot of work, things like this remind me how far I have come, this first saw the light of day sometime in 2001 –

Untouched blue sky, white cloud on the horizon,
cherry blossom makes an impromptu showing.
Testing the air for spring and the flowers that
will soon follow.

I had the first reminder for NaPoWriMo today, but I think this year I’ll relax and take the month off, watch other people bashing out the poems and enjoy myself with all the reading I can do that month. Have fun as winter turns into spring this month, I will mark its passing somehow, a little snow item to remind us of the journey we are all taking, every day of our lives.

Fragments From A Journey

Lac Geneva, a pause on the road we travelled.

Sometimes there are lines, stanzas that I write, that will need something else to help them reach a conclusion. They may never become more than a fragment in a notebook, or they may just become a line somewhere else unintended. Lost and melancholy or the capturing of a moment of peace in a busy day, whatever they are to become they are more for being written. They become part of the history of a journey, perhaps one day my family down the line will find them and wonder where I was or what we were doing at the time, a mystery of the past for them to uncover.

---

Fragments

The scent of pine, and fresh water lake,
hour old rain and flowers on the banks.
Your quiet spreading across the table,
a waiting perhaps for it all.
And time becomes heavier than before
where we sit at the café with coffee so bad
in a plastic cup we smile and drink it anyway.

-x-

There is no location, we could be anywhere,
eyes closed and surrounded by mountains
the water is a clear blue green darkened
by fair weather clouds passing quickly.

-x-

Cloudy night, wind drawn closed curtain darkness.
I listen for you breathing, for anything
to prove I am not alone in the night.

---

I have finished the notebook we bought in Venice in 2011, and started a new one bought in Paris from Shakespeare and Co. Endings and a new beginning, I need to go back over the last pages and work on the notes from this our most recent trip, mountains and scenery have filled my head with images that need sorting out into something usable.

Mountain Notebook

In the meantime, have fun with the changing world, the weather is not against you it is simply what it is, just like you.

Wansfell.

Cloud edge on Wansfell Pike.

Sometimes, despite the weather, a walk is just what you need. To get your head above everything and see the landscape open out around you, to let the wind and rain do their thing and enjoy the experience. Wansfell Pike sits over Ambleside and Windermere, it holds the town, hovers over and can be seen from most parts. It’s not an ugly hill, it doesn’t brood over everything like some.

Red Screes

The cloud and rain came and went in fits and starts and provided some atmosphere to the views. Three of us climbed together, stopping frequently to look about and smell the rain soaked grass, good tracks and few other people on the hill except for the runners on a mission to the top.

Looking out towards Red Screes.

Drifting.

Digitalis, Foxglove.

Somewhere to stand and stare.

Something, a fragment I’m working on at the moment, for the hills and mountains. There’s a lot of notes in my book that need to be crunched and cut up, scattered about a bit. This piece keeps coming back to haunt me

A place to stand and stare,
to see as far as you wish,
or the world allows.

Waiting for the strangers to pass.

Waiting for the strangers to pass,
do you look over your shoulder
to see who’s there, hear footsteps,
see the shadow chasing
on the street.

Ambleside, Lake District Weather.

Just because…

The wonderfully named ‘Nanny Lane’

When we arrived at the village of Troutbeck, where lunch was forecast, the rain decided we had it too easy too long. We had lunch under a tree, the pattering water running through the leaves and into our sandwiches. A flask of coffee and some Kendal mint cake made everything seem good, and as the rain eased we headed home.

Ambleside in the misty light of summer.

More to come from the Lakes, but it’s all a bit erratic at the moment, bear with me as we head out into the world.

NaPoWriMo Revisions. Tomorrow II.

Going back to April and looking again at each piece, seeing how it fits. Since they were all written with a very short time scale, finding the idea behind them a month later is interesting, even slippery. The original thought, morphs in to a new idea, or maybe digs deeper to find more of the story than previously shown. Today I have gone with a reduction, and added more repetition, more history perhaps

original post

A simple line to follow.

---

Tomorrow.

We followed barely a memory, a darker line.
We followed because of the future I suppose.
We followed an idea, to chase something,

to go somewhere different from the past.
To chase meaning, a step away on the path,
to follow the sunset and reach the horizon,

we followed to reach out and touch something
that was different, that had history and depth,
we followed because we had nothing else.

---