A Seat dedicated to Jacquie
memories float with the tide
we shared so many ideas
we shared so many hours
we reminisced over coffees
planned laughed discussed how
we shared a love of this land
now our adopted country and
now most definitely our home
our poetry reflected this love
of the land and its coast … then
spurred on by your personal deadline
poetry poured from your pen
left in books for us to read when
we can no longer meet but
I can and do sit here and remember
There hasn’t been much time to spare recently, but the book From the Mountains to the Sea is selling steadily, the launch went well and I’m now arranging readings in 2020. Combining poems with photographs seems to work well. I now have to consider a follow up which means when we go walking Les needs to be aware of sights that are inspiring me so that he can take an appropriate photograph.
A dear friend of mine died recently and I will be reading the following at her funeral – two poems that were chosen by her. Appropriately they are on friendship and love.
Friendship
Life is nothing without friendship.
A listening ear can be a lifeline,
an anchor and a means of hope.
Without friendship, life is diminished
desiccated. When found, that special
relationship restores, inspires.
Holding another’s life in mind with care
and understanding, makes for
a strong friendship, valued and rare.
Cherish all loving friendships now
and forever, with much love, hope
for them lasting many years to come.
Love Endures
Questions remain,
faith suspended,
doubt always there,
belief upended.
Uncertain
of what lies ahead,
what faces us beyond
that final curtain.
When we face the end,
will we see and know
beyond that cloud
of unknowing?
Live for the now.
Of the present we are sure.
Though our lives will end,
love will endure.
A death at this time of the year always seems even more poignant. Possibly because it’s a time when we hope to get together with family and friends so losing one seems particularly hard.
Losing someone we are close to makes us more conscious of the importance of living every day to the full and valuing all friendships and relationships rather than taking them for granted. Valuing too the ability to do whatever we can – however trivial that might seem. Taking a walk through a wood and seeing beauty in fungi for instance …
There is far too much talk about walls – especially from a certain person. We should surely be thinking about and working towards building bridges between nations, between our communities and between all age groups.
Some bridges aren’t built for transport, they’re rather trickier to construct…
Barriers of hate
walls of prejudice, racism
exacerbate rot.
Extending kindness
sympathy, friendship and love
build bridges of hope.
He’s there most days – surveying his territory. Sometimes standing motionless as if sculpted. Today the blue sky provided rather a nice backdrop – a contrast to some of the stormy grey we’ve had of late. I’ve yet to capture him against one of our beautiful sunsets though.
The Wigtown Book Festival started last Friday – hence the rather long silence and lack of writing anything here. So many thought provoking talks from a wide variety of authors. More on this at a later date. Just now, I need to take stock – rather like the gull.
On Saturday I’ll be listening to a man I greatly admire, someone I’ve written about before – Richard Holloway. He’ll be talking about his latest book Waiting for the Last Bus. As I mentioned on an earlier post, he has referred to amor fati – learning to accept the bad as well as the good things that we’re faced with. Today, I learned that a dear friend is about to put that to the test as she waits for a major operation on her brain.
Somehow, the gull against the sky seemed a calming image to focus on.
Sometimes, walking round the garden and looking at different plants, I remember friends from the past. Many plants are associated with old friends. The plants themselves become old friends and they remind us of the people who gave them to us, or who carefully divided large clumps of favourites to share with others.
Remembering Olga
In your seventies, you ‘lived adventurously’.
Friends suspected madness, but were wrong.
After years of caring you were free
to create a garden of rooms
with hedges to shelter kniphofia,
crocosmia, rambling roses.
Birds flocked there, your pond was
lit by damselflies, flashes of iridescent blue.
The garden was your love;
friends found a peace there,
absorbed your love of life,
a life where worry wasn’t welcome.
You and your elderly dog, two old ladies together,
‘walking cheerfully over the world’,
an inspiration to any young
who dreaded being old.
On your birthday, aged ninety three,
you wheeled a barrow load of weeds towards me,
brushed errant strands of hair with garden hands,
smiled and offered tea.
You came to rest there, lying in the garden,
Secateurs by your side, not to be used again.
A slender vase of your crocosmia sits on my table
cheerful, colourful, defying sadness.
Earlier today, I had my attention drawn again to The Prelude by Wordsworth. This was a great favourite of an old friend, who encouraged a group of us to read it some years ago. In Book VI (written 1805),Wordsworth refers to his friendship with Coleridge.
‘There is no grief, no sorrow, no despair,
No languor, no dejection, no dismay,
No absence scarcely can there be, for those
Who love as we do.’
A close friendship endures. Death of a close friend does not stop them living on in our thoughts. We are still aware of what they would think about events, ideas, thoughts. In our minds we still share memories.
Friendship
Life is nothing without friendship.
A listening ear can be a lifeline,
an anchor and a means of hope.
Without friendship, life is diminished
desiccated. When found, that special
relationship restores, inspires.
Holding another’s life in mind with care
and understanding, makes for
a strong friendship, valued and rare.
Life's a Beach 