THANKYOU for all your kind comments. I will try and reply personally in the morning. Meanwhile - Sarah - you're on. I will try and jot some more words on paper and would love to write to you. Lizzy D (and anyone who wants to copy this poem) feel free. I am humbled you should want to do so.
As an alternative to this morning's doom and gloom, I found two poems I had completely forgotten about, whilst tidying up a bookcase and hoiking out old books to go to the Fair. I also found a pile of Manx family history notes, so will look at those next week.
I've just taken out the boxes of stock which were in the cupboard under the stairs and they are ready to go into the car now. TBH, I may gird my loins and load the bigger ones tonight, along with the tables and two folding chairs. Then it won't be worrying me overnight. Of course, Lulu managed to get out of where I had her shut away and shot into the cupboard under the stairs, where she promptly hid amongst the cobwebs and mouldy spiders under the bottom shelf, where no-one could reach her. I have done a head count since, and they're all out here and no-one shut in!
ROAD TO BRECON
Pine boughs dangle limply like scarf-ends
Across the muddied verge, where
Bundles of twigs from hedging lie like a bristling eyebrow
Beside the dark maw of the winter ditch.
A narrow carpet-runner of weary green races beside the car,
Punctuated by forgotten cords of logs, shaggy with moss and lichen.
A blade of sunshine highlights dead bracken and
A swaying of bramble boughs dance against
A mausoleum of holly, black as a pirate's beard.
On the hillslope, a thicket of ill-planted ash and birch saplings
Jostle for company amongst a carpet of rotting leaves,
Moss-mounds velvet smooth at their feet.
On the bare hill-top, stooped as a crabbit old man,
Stands a wind-blasted tree, leaning away from the winds.
The sun hangs low and brassy in the fading sky,
As shadows lengthen across the bleached grasses of damp hill pasture,
A densely-hedge lane gouges and field,
And dangles the hillside like a funeral ribbon.
I used to ask Keith to jot things down on the newspaper as I drove along, and had a sudden flash of inspiration. Then I would write these into my Commonplace book when we got home, and sometimes they were made into blank verse. I shall never be able to do that again. Trish thought that poetry had to be de-dem, de-dum de-dum and rhyming. I can remember her handing me back a poem I'd showed her, without a comment. That still hurts. She hadn't done poetry since school and never did any work on technically breaking down or understanding poetry. I did some on my access course, and at the time was really torn between doing Eng. Lit. and Archaeology, but was advised by the English lecturer to do Archaeology as there was SO much reading involved with Eng. Lit, and I had young children. (She had 4 but they were all at Cathedral school and boarding.)
I have pondered about putting this poem on as it looks like currying favour. If you don't like it, just say. It pleases me anyway.
Well I like it - the carpet runner of weary green - is such a good line - and the whole poem is so autumnal.
ReplyDeleteI think it was about November and can remember that day - I think we were coming home from Brecon Auction.
DeleteYour poem created a vivid picture for me of the countryside.
ReplyDeleteI try to capture a moment.
DeleteYour words paint a picture as good poetic words should.
ReplyDeleteI tend to read to the punctuation not the line and that means that poems naturally make sense to me. I sometimes think it's the readers that stop at the end of each line that don't pick up on the rhythm of the poetry in the 'right' way. Although there's no right way to read poetry that speaks to your heart.
Yours does. I like it.
Thank you. Trish was the one who went to Grammar School too. I always said that I didn't really start learning until I LEFT school and I read widely, and especially loved the poetry (and prose) of Edward Thomas.
DeletePoetry isn't my favorite use of language, possibly because the 'de dum, de dum' repetitive pace gets stuck in my head and eventually wears me out. In 'Road to Brecon' you have created word pictures so vivid that have the sense of being a passenger in your car. There is an autumnal 'feel' to the descriptions--a landscape on the edge of winter [?]
ReplyDeleteYes, a dull November day. I was relaxed and knowing the road off by heart, was able to capture bits of it to remember.
DeleteI like your poem and the picture it paints of countryside. I have written a few poems myself.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I hope you are continuing with your poetry writing. I don't have much heart for it right now.
DeleteWonderfully observant. Poetry often makes more of an impact than prose, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteThe poem is so beautiful. I will reread and then copy into my journal if that is okay?
ReplyDeleteYou're so courageous and strong. But please don't feel you must be cheery for us, your readers. Your burdens are huge and heavy, you must be grieving. We---I---care, even as strangers far far away. [pls delete or not post if this is overstepping what's polite.]
lizzy
I am touched that you want to copy the poem into your journal.
DeleteI have to be strong right now, but it is difficult. I grieve, you are right - for a way of life lost, for Keith's struggles, for the future. "We - I - care, even as strangers far away." Thank you for that Lizzie - it's like having a hug.
I get it. Reading poetry takes me back to myself. It is years since I wrote any poetry (interestingly my first ever blog post [May 2015, Homeslip] was a poem). I have to write down my thoughts otherwise my head would explode. I’m quite good at keeping a two or three line journal every day and often this develops into something more meaningful and self-analytical but finding time to write poetry seems an unbelievable luxury in a busy stress-filled life and yet I always find the time to listen to music (there are some brilliant spoken word programmes on Radio 3 too), practise my yoga and meditate, to garden, to walk, to read novels, to sew, knit or embroider, to cook a good meal… Perhaps you and I should do a poetry swap BB, or poems by post. Tomorrow evening when I am sitting in my ancient Dartmoor longhouse with a full bookcase and no wifi or TV perhaps I will write a poem. At university we used to meet every Wednesday afternoon for a voluntary session of critical practice or poetry appreciation. It was such good fun and often ended up with a bottle of wine. My Eng Lit years were between 1980 and 1983 and followed seven months of flogging advertising space on the London Weekly Advertiser, three months working on a kibbutz and three months travelling around Greece and Italy and I have never forgotten the untold luxury of being able to sit in a library and read all day. Please keep writing. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteI hope that beautiful Dartmoor does inspire you to write a poem. I shall be sitting in a shed, waiting for customers, so not quite the same amount of inspiration in there!! You had a wonderful early life - gosh, living in a Kibbutz - something that would never have occurred to me in my so-ordinary 20s, although I did enjoy teaching at Pony Club, specializing in the nervous children - I had a way with them,. It wasn't until I met Keith that my life blossomed.
DeleteAnd OH YES - the untold luxury of sitting in a library and reading all day - I used to hug myself with delight at Lampeter Uni Library. SO much information surrounding me, so much to learn.
It's just a beautiful poem There are some lovely scenes painted within the lines.
ReplyDeleteI seem to have lost my ability to write my prose, I never was very good at poetry, and I have always envied those who could write free verse like you have done.
I always seemed to create a good flow of words that sounded intelligent and creative, but when I came to write them down, they'd gone, fleeting, blown on the wind to wherever our lost words go.
Oh, I think your poem is lovely. Your words are very bring the imagery to life. I like this style much more than the "de-dum" types. Celie (I just commented on your previous post, it probably showed up as anon. I can't seem to sign in).
ReplyDeleteIt should please you! Your poem winds gently through the countryside just, as I imagine, the road to Brecon does.
ReplyDelete