GLANCES, GLIMPSES AND OBSERVATIONS

This morning the air brings me the tint of caramel. The soft pudding kind. I look around for any clues for where this might be coming from, but my early morning eyes do not determine anything in particular that could account for such a scent. The day is opening quietly, and it brings with it a gentle sweetness.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a person holding a fried onion ring. It actually is and it is a photo of Kath peering through said food item during a lunch date recently. Whilst looking for a photo for this week’s blog I realised that most of the pictures in my camera roll over the last week or so have been of the images needed for my anniversary poems. Squares with numbers and text on, all pretty much the same except for the number. I chuckle as I realise that this might well indicate that I have not been head up noticing the world very much for a while.

It also brings to mind two joyful glimpses I have had this past week. There has been the joy of a ginger cat and of a jay both catching my eye from pillars in my garden. Maybe they are also my mini signs to look up from the page or the screen more.

When I have seen jays before I have often caught a glimpse of them as they have flown across short spaces within forest areas and I have always felt lucky to catch this rare flash of their distinct feathers. The one this week, in my own garden, caught my attention as I was settling to work at my laptop. On being observed it flew from the wall and thudded to a stop on the roof above me. I went outside to take a closer look, but it had already moved on by the time I got outside. The ginger cat had been watching me one night as I was unloading the tumble dryer in the back porch. I felt that wonderful sense of being lifted from my own world because I was being observed in a kind and curious way. And there studying me was the lovely solid looking cat that has recently been sleeping in a sheltered spot in our garden. We blinked at each other and then, as I smiled at the thought of being noticed whilst doing a boring but necessary job, off he went.

I am sort of making a note to self to notice more things on my daily walk and this brings to mind the fact that it feels like a solid fitness thing to do at this time of year when compared to the lightness of taking the same walk in spring when the daffodils are emerging. Photos at this time of year also seem to be of solid things like tree trunks against the sky or cows so maybe I will look for the light as I stroll out and see where it is that I find it in this new Autumn. I know it was in the sunrise and sunset of Saturday into Sunday, and I know those two studied views gladdened my heart.

Here’s THEY ARE AUTUMN which I wrote after noticing the fall of acorns under an oak tree as the seasons were changing one year. It was published by Black Bough Poetry as part of their Silver Branch poetry feature.

THEY ARE AUTUMN

And they look delicious

smoothed brown on the ground

with their snug little green hats.

And I want to eat some

but I have forgotten their name

and I don’t know if you can.

I give in to the temptation

to tread on some,

to feel them hold out

before my weight cracks them open.

All I know is they fell from the tree above.

Its leaves are telling me it’s an oak,

and I know so much depends upon this tree,

but it takes me all day

to remember acorns.

MARGARINE TUBS OF MARBLES AND ERASERS

This morning the air brings a sense of cleanliness and has no particular scent that I can determine. A gentle chatter of birds sounds from the aerials and chimney pots. I get the sense the day started a while ago for them.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a glass jar with a blue ball on top. I say it is a glass jar with three marbles inside and that a large blue marble is placed on top to act as a stopper.

The grass has sprung back into shape after plenty of rain and it seems strange to be needing to be cutting it after weeks of watching it turn yellow (and rather crispy) and not need much attention. Pleasingly its flourishing green renewal has renewed my energy for gardening, and I have thoroughly enjoyed being out in the fresh air. I have also enjoyed the scents I have carried with me on my skin as a result of doing some cutting back and weeding. On the first day I smelt of rosemary, on the second lavender, and finally blackcurrants. A heady mix of scents.

I have often been found at my desk this past week squeezing in some extra writing time for the Tea Towel Poems. Those that have been out in the world have received feedback from their recipients, and for those yet to reach a couple celebrating their anniversary I have invited my lovely wife into poetry corner to listen to my drafts. She is good at giving me a succinct and honest reaction and can easily alert me when something I have written only really makes sense in my head. At one point I realised that I could make the necessary tweaks by changing the title of a particular poem. And Kath’s response to the fact it might mean the poem had a long title? “It can’t be any longer than that one about drawers!” Reader, there are drawers in the title of that poem but it’s not just about drawers!

An image that flashed into my head recently is of me during my time at junior school happily skipping back into the classroom after playtime singing Dolly Parton’s ‘Love is Like a Butterfly’. Whilst singing I was swinging my margarine tub of marbles that I had been playing with. I was feeling joyful and all of a sudden the lid flew off scattering the marbles across the classroom floor. I remember the way so many people in my class quickly helped to gather them before our teacher entered. This flashback brought to mind old school friends and I was thinking about one particular friend… together we had collected erasers in a margarine tub (I obviously loved an empty tub back then and this could well have been the precursor to my love of things in jars.) and I had lovely memories of spending time with her at her house. And then a few days later that very person connected with me on Instagram. At first, I couldn’t believe it and thought that it could be a coincidence and simply someone with the same name. I wondered how to phrase the question to ask until I heard the coach in me say, “You want to find out so just ask or you’ll never know”. And a lovely echo of Claire Pedrick’s wisdom, “Don’t make it weird”. I chuckled at the different ways I could phrase the question and settled on: “Lovely to connect with you on here. Perhaps you are X from the house with the saloon doors. If not I hope you have lovely doors and that you also had a lovely friend that enjoyed collecting colourful erasers with you many moons ago!” And it was indeed X and my heart did a little glow of happiness at being remembered, and for then being reminded of one of the games we used to play in the playground that involved us donning a range of different style bomber jackets. And that gave me a wonderful reminder of the joyful youth that sits in the core of me and might begin to explain why I find it difficult to be silent when I share an office with someone or when Kath is also working from home.

Here’s the poem with the long title that isn’t just about drawers. It comes from my second collection Welcome to the Museum of a Life published by Black Eyes Publishing UK where it is featured in The Gallery of Dreams…

Last Night I Dreamt I Slid My Poems into Drawers of Disinfectant to Sterilise Their Titles

Today, a poet in black stands at a lectern

reading us her words.

At the end she straightens her pages

says she wants to sing for us.

Feet together, shoulders back, she begins.

Her eyes are closed as she sends out the song.

I want to listen, but she is moving now –

her, the lectern and the music she is making

are rising into the air.

I see no ropes, no pulleys

yet she is up

beyond the curtain fringe.

Then a slice of the stage drops open beneath her

and I gasp as I see what is planned.

Down into the trap room she goes.

I wasn’t sure her song fitted

or exactly what she was trying to tell us,

but her poems had me clapping.

I turn to you realising that I don’t own her books

or remember her name.

No one in the audience seems the least perturbed;

they are going for ice-cream.

Come on, you say, they’ve got three different vegan flavours.

JUST START AND KEEP GOING

This morning the air is fresh after the rain, the sky is blurred grey and the magpies are sounding their rattles in the trees. I think I can smell horse chestnut leaves; I call it autumnal. My mind is on the changing of seasons and the passing of time.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a group of people posing for a photo. It is in fact a trio of siblings having their cobwebs well and truly blown away on a boat trip to the forts off the coast of Kent. I loved this summer holiday day and I love the fact that this picture encapsulates a moment in time where we were truly in the moment out on the water.

Three years ago I decided to get up and sniff the air each Monday morning. I also decided to write a blog. The reason? A pivot. A very large one where I decided to step out of my thirty-year career and see what came next for me.

And the first blogs were rather short, but I was starting, and it was getting me up early for myself instead of early for travelling to work. I love watching the day unfold. I love sunrise and the peacefulness of a day when things are just beginning. When the kettle’s on for the first cup of tea and the air is relatively free of fumes there’s a freshness and a sense of another new beginning to be grateful for. I wanted to make the most of these moments, and I also wanted to set something down in a similar way to my three years of early morning driving to work tweets that had kept me sane and noticing after covid. I needed one stable thing to mark each new week, and that was standing outside each Monday morning and breathing deeply.

Doing something regularly has a beautiful familiarity to it which marks time rather than letting it slip by. And because I am someone who, as my sister puts it, is either climbing a mountain or not sure I want to go for a walk, I like the fact that this habit has stuck. The writer in me likes writing and it feels good to me to mark a new week.

One of my poems has been published in Molecules Unlimited Poetry Journal: Issue 1, and I am glad that Stephen Paul Wren chose to include it in this anthology. Poems submitted for consideration were on the theme of the heart and this theme reminded me of a maths activity I used to enjoy working on with the children where we compared the heart rate per minute of different mammals. This poem was written in response to the call out for submissions and started with me remembering this lesson and seeing where I could find a poem within that thought. It felt cathartic to set down the words. It also seems apt because this time three years ago when I was starting this blog, I was also starting to focus on reading my poetry out loud to more people and that came with a whole range of thoughts and feelings that the newly training coach in me wanted to explore.

Reading the poem

My heart is guinea pig fast

and the trick here is not to become a shrew.

I keep my mouth closed

hold in that small mammal squeak.

I focus on what can slow me down.

Pause and swallow.

Take a deep breath,

notice the scent of grass,

rise above its slight dampness,

resist the urge to turn and leave.

I tell myself no one is noticing

and even if they are it’s ok.

—
Sue Finch is the author of two poetry collections: Magnifying Glass and Welcome to the Museum of a Life. She loves the coast, peculiar things, and the scent of ice-cream freezers. You can find her on https://suefinch.co.uk/

BETTER TO BE BORN LUCKY THAN RICH

This morning the air brings gentle hints of autumn. It holds coolness and damp. The seasons are shifting.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a person standing in front of a display of knitted clothes. I say it is, and that it is me in front of some of Kath’s designs at Wonderwool Wales. I also say that alt text missed the fact that I am wearing my Dolly Parton t-shirt. This is an older photo, but one which seems suited to this blog.

The title for this blog, better to be born lucky than rich, is one of my nan’s sayings. And whenever it rings in my ears it brings a smile to my face. Luck has given me things that I could never buy. And that t-shirt has led to many conversations with a whole host of good people.

Back in 2011 I opened an email and cried tears of joy. It was my Golden Ticket, my Charlie Bucket Moment. As a child I loved the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the thought of the absolute excitement of unwrapping a chocolate bar to find a prize. I could imagine myself being the one to discover such a thing. I could see me freeze-framed in the moment of spotting the golden shine under the paper wrapper. And whether it was always in me or was planted in me from reading the book I believed there was a possibility it could be me when it came to competitions. I have won some things in my time including a bright yellow cuddly toy as a result of guessing the exact number of plastic hoops in a jar, and I have revelled in those moments of luck, but winning the opportunity of a meet and greet with the one and only Dolly Parton felt like a once in a lifetime, ‘can it really be true?’ moment.

I first listened to Dolly’s music as a young child because my mum had lots of her music including the album My Tennessee Mountain Home which was often played on the radiogram in our house. The storytelling of these songs delighted me, and as I listened to each song I felt like I was inhabiting the story of it and watching it as a film all at the same time. Dolly’s story captivated me. From humble beginnings to famous singer to true icon. Her humour, her wisdom, her sparkle, the way she did so much good with the money she made, her whole persona.

And luck meant that I was able to stand in the presence of an amazing person I had admired for so many years! There was magic in the air when Dolly stepped off her tour bus. Pure radiance. Stardust. Palpable joy. Afterwards I tried to put it into words for others, but I couldn’t seem to do it justice. I had met one of the most admirable people and the experience had exceeded my expectations so that I was beside myself in a giddy, dream come true kind of way. They say “don’t meet your heroes” but when it comes to Dolly Parton she was that beautiful, sparkly, angelic person in real life just like she was on tv and in my imagination. A person fully living their values and being fully present in the moment.

The fact that just under three years later I won a second meet and greet (and Kath could come too) made me feel as though a fairy godmother was out there granting wishes.

Much like I didn’t have the words to explain my feelings after meeting Dolly I struggled to find words when I heard that she had died on 25th August 2026. All I could do was sit quietly with my thoughts. Dolly was one of a kind. She has done so much for so many and ensured that her good work will continue. An astute joy bringer. And I am very much hoping to still be around on her 100th birthday when she has arranged for an unheard song to be released into the world. 

In the meantime there’s plenty for me still to think about when it comes to luck and dreams and goals. And it’s nearly September, which for me after all those years in education still brings new year vibes and a desire to reflect on what to set down and what to carry forward. My annual reread of Dolly Parton’s Dream More book is calling.

I don’t yet have a poem about Dolly, but I often have vivid dreams and some years ago I awoke smiling after a wonderful dream where Dolly Parton had invited me to watch the soundcheck and we then went backstage before going for ice-cream! I dreamt about her on the night she died too. How cool is the mind that it can give these kinds of adventures in the dark of night?

Here’s to palpable joy.

LOOKING FOR A SIGN

This morning the ground is damp, and the birds are singing unhurried songs. The air is fresh and floral; a light mixture of flowers and grass.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a stuffed animal in the air, and indeed it is. It is a blurred Ronnie jumping for joy by a bridge in Port Sunlight. My eyes were a little blurry when taking the photo and I didn’t really realise that he was quite so out of focus until I checked the photos later on! (Note to self… don’t catch up with reading things on the phone during car journeys when your wife is driving without putting the reading glasses on because it makes your eyes feel strained, tired and a wee bit blurry.)

There was a partial eclipse this week, which was marked by brother and sister colanders, jacket potatoes, a dragonfly fly-by, bat swoops and shooting stars. That’s a lovely kind of eclipse evening.

And this weekend I was feeling excited at the thought of being back in the place where a poem was first sparked into being. The poem in question was inspired by a sign on a vending machine in the toilets at a poetry reading I went to in October 2024 at Port Sunlight, and this weekend saw us heading in exactly that direction for a yarn show.

This poem was also the one that I casually read out loud at a yarn show last weekend. The one that had me setting down the response it received because it made my heart sing. So before we headed off with all the yarny goods I packed a copy of the poem into my bag. I was ready to take a photo of it next to the vending machine in the toilets. I also decided it might be pretty cool to record it whilst I was there since I would be ‘on location’.

And the moral of the story is… don’t wait.

We unpacked the knitwear and then headed straight over to The Bridge Inn, where the poem began, to ask about visiting their toilets. We had a wonderfully warm and friendly greeting when we entered, and this made it super easy to strike up a conversation about poems and toilets! I was invited to explore the corridors and see if things were as I remembered. And, despite me thinking I had originally gone upstairs, there on the ground floor was the exact toilet door sign that was etched on my memory. But when I went inside, the sign on the vending machine was rather less poetically inspirational than it had been back then. It no longer read: “Have the best sex you’ve ever had”, instead there was just a simple brand label in its place.

Perhaps someone reading this will have been at that poetry reading and remember the vending machine and the sign it used to wear. Perhaps during the sign’s time there it made other people momentarily pause. Perhaps I am the only person to have written a poem about it. And maybe the moral of the story is actually that there is a joy in setting down a moment in time, and that it is the moments that matter. Who’d have thought a visit to one toilet in 2024 could have sparked all these thoughts so many months later. Oh, and I loved the poetry readings I heard that evening too so if you were one of the readers there, I tip my hat to you and your setting down of words.

Here’s my poem with huge thanks to Damien B. Donnelly for giving this poem its home in The Storms Issue V, and to all those who take time with the words…

HAVE THE BEST SEX YOU’VE EVER HAD

That’s what it says

on a vending machine in the toilets

in a pub with kaleidoscope carpets.

I feel momentarily guilty for being tired lately, 

for not doing the things we did when we first met.

Someone comes in

so I move to the hand dryer

and resist the temptation to ask them

what they think about this invitation.

I picture us two, decades ago in our rented flat.

What we did back then was pretty spectacular

and it’s rather nice to think there’s going to be more.

I won’t tell you I got my inspiration from a sign

in The Ladies.

LOGANBERRIES

This morning the air smells of minty toothpaste and traffic. It has elements of autumnal coolness in it as the sun begins to establish itself in the sky.

Alt text is not available to offer a suggestion for this week’s photo content. I say it is Ronnie having a photo shoot with some hotel curtains as background in order to add some interest and depth to some hurried photos of blackberries and raspberries.

In the back garden whilst marvelling at how a great forest of borage self-seeds each year I noticed that the autumn fruiting raspberries were beginning to ripen. This had me spinning me back in time to my nan giving me my first loganberry. I loved this large firm fruit with its clearly hollowed core and the way it brought my favourite taste of raspberries and mixed this with the depth of blackberries without bringing the tartness of those bramble fruits. I loved those hands that offered it to me and the love that always radiated from my nan.

Fruit seems to grow best in our garden these days. But a lot of it has ripened well ahead of time this hot summer. Recently we made a sauce out of the few blackcurrants that hadn’t spoiled in the heat and even though I added sugar and served it with sweet ice-cream it was very tart. Good to have used the berries though and to have grown them ourselves.

We have a number of rhubarb crowns newly planted in different places in the garden and the one in the shadiest, slopiest part of the garden is doing the best so far. In this dry weather it has the best chance of getting the benefit of the sparse rain and not drying out too quickly, and I think it will be well-established next season. There’s something about rhubarb crumble that delights me, and to have it freely available feels like a blessing. These new crowns all come from our neighbour’s garden. We originally split our crown to give some to Jack who lived next door so he too had a ready supply to enjoy and share with his family. His crown really took off (becoming about 2 metres in diameter) and ours did not do so well. When Jack sadly died and the house was sold we asked if we could split his crown again in order to keep the rhubarb going. Hence a number of crowns now dotted around our garden that we are enjoying looking after.

The weekend included our second visit to a yarn show in Newcastle. It is lovely to return to a familiar setting, and to talk with returning customers as well as to meet new people. If you’ve followed this blog for a while you will know I love the conversations that arrive from being in such a setting, and there were many during the days we were there. Here’s a comment I am delighted to set down because it was an instant response that came about after I had read a poem out loud  –  who’d have thought such things could happen just like that in the yarn world – “It’s like a real one. It’s deep.” That’s a great critique of a poem heard for the first time, and it made my heart sing.

Here’s to conversations, impromptu poetry reading, growing good things and to enjoying fruits when they are in season. I now can’t resist sharing my loganberry poem. This poem was first published by Feral A Journal of Poetry and Art in 2024, and it is one of those prose poems that I simply loved writing because it flowed and seemed to want to take its place on the page in front of my very eyes!

WIKIPEDIA SAYS THE LOGANBERRY WAS ACCIDENTALLY CREATED IN 1881 IN SANTA CRUZ, BY THE AMERICAN JUDGE AND HORTICULTURIST JAMES HARVEY LOGAN

But I tell you that Logan had a paintbrush from a magic colouring book. The kind where the pictures come alive when you brush them with water. Where the dinosaurs are speckled grey and you can just use that one brush and there they are in colour – slightly faded I’ll grant you, but that’s the payoff for not having the mess of paints. I say he bought one of those thinking it would bring back happy memories of his childhood, but that once it was in his hand, he had a different idea. How in his garden he had the perfect long-fruited raspberry. How his fingertips held the memories of berries yielding to his gentle pull, leaving their white cones behind. That he headed out of his back door with that yellow, plastic-handled brush, and walked whistling to the hedgerow where the wild blackberries grew. That he smiled as he tickled the pollen from the flowers. That when he looked at those huge berries on the brambles, he was imagining the combination he could make. How he was predicting the exact depth of colour in his head when he transferred those yellow speckles from the rough-ended bristles to the starred stigmas of his raspberries. I tell you he hurried because he imagined that if he didn’t, a bee might do it first. You say, But it couldn’t have been a plastic-handled brush in 1881.

IT’S TIN, IT’S POTTERY, IT’S PEARL

This morning the warm air brings the scent of coffee underscored by rich dark chocolate. I stand still to linger in the moment and breathe deeply.

Alt text says this week’s photo is of a stuffed animal in a bush of yellow flowers. I say it is Ronnie ‘pre-cataracts’ ignoring the fact that there are lots of spines on gorse bushes while posing for a photo at The Great Orme. This is also the photo for August on the #LookThere calendar this year. The photograph was taken during my MA when I was exploring locations for my video poems as part of my reading poetry aloud project. The project included putting together a collection of short poems which could then be read by me and by someone else. The idea was to compare the two readings and also address my nerves around reading out loud. It was a fun and interesting way to explore poetry performance, and I have fond memories of bringing the work together and of the people who took time to record my words. Each poem was 14 lines which made it the right kind of length for a quick and simple recording. This also reminds me of the times I would want to improve my skills by reading aloud at an open mic, but thought that choosing the shortest poem possible was the only way to combat my nervousness. Reader, it wasn’t the answer. Finding my tribe and finding my voice was the way forward.

My week has included some lovely opportunities to send and write anniversary poems. I was very proud to have set aside time to write one for L and O, but had counted too many years so they received a ‘tin’ poem when it should have been pottery. The kettle then went on, and I sharpened my brain to compose the correct kind of poem for their ninth anniversary instead. Pleasingly I managed it just in time. The week also included thirty years of marriage for R and S. I didn’t know until I saw a post on social media, but it felt serendipitous because I had been wanting to write a pearl anniversary poem for a while. I thoroughly enjoyed having the right inspiration to be creative right there and then, and I was delighted when the poem was well-received. It was also the first poem written entirely at my newly restored writing desk. There’s something special about writing in a dedicated space, and although I like the portability of my laptop and the joy of having a notes app on my phone and a good range of notebooks that mean that I can take my writing anywhere, I also love the ritual of desk writing. So all in all it’s been a lovely week of gifting words and of extending the number of poems I have created to celebrate the symbolism of different anniversaries.

I walked a lot during July, but didn’t quite get the ‘medal’ on my app because I missed the 30-minute brisk walking target on one occasion. I love the fact that I nearly succeeded and the feeling of getting back into the rhythm of walking. I have listened to a range of albums recently whilst strolling, but I still return to the joy of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Personal History. For me this album continues to be the perfect accompaniment to my solo walks more than a year after its initial release.

This week I choose to share a poem that was written some years ago, after a boat trip from Whitby harbour which had me reflecting on how courageous my grandad was for all the time he spent on the seas and oceans.

WHITBY’S OLD LIFEBOAT

Last trip round the harbour!

The sailor announces the end of the afternoon.

Grandad would approve –

out on the water, breathing sea air,

catching spray on skin and hair.

Salt water in his veins, not blood,

Nan said.

Or, on another day,

Always down the bloody seafront!

Pushing aside the smell of fish

and the vastness of that water

we paid our money,

expecting a life jacket as well as a seat.

Silently disappointed, we headed out.

The straight route out of the harbour was fine

until Whitby became a postcard.

One minute the waves were rolling over,

offering us their bellies,

the next they were rising solid grey,

lifting us, dropping us down.

They threatened to throw me out,

fill my eyes with seaweed and brine,

send my lover north, my bag west.

My stomach quivered;

I was the wrong kind of petrified.

I wanted to be a breakwater; ancient wood

salted over time,

aged, steadfast.

The old lifeboat was a fairground pirate ship

and I was clinging on:

fixing my smile,

picturing a hammock

and an Arctic Convoy Star.

HUMANNESS

This morning the ground has been dampened by rain for the first time in ages and the air is all roses and rosemary.

Alt text says this week’s image is a colourful background with words. I say it is a page from a carousel created by Maxine Bell for The Association of Business Poets. I also say I love it.

Since becoming a founding member of The Association of Business Poets I have thoroughly enjoyed the thinking that has been involved. As a group we have been able to meet online and spend time working on our values. This is an area that is of huge interest to me. When I started my coaching qualification in 2023, I loved the sessions centred around thinking about personal values for life and work. I had not focused in on this with such intensity as an individual before and it taught me so much about me as a person, and about how I find balance and joy. For The Association of Business Poets, a facilitated session with our CEO, Kate Jenkinson, and founding members enabled us to reflect on our individual values and then on the values for this newly formed group. It brought back memories of productive coaching sessions where I discussed and rated my personal values with colleagues whilst working on my Level 7 Coaching Diploma. What also shone out was the importance of holding our own values separately from the values of a newly formed organisation. Of course some will feature in both these sets, but when you’re working as part of a group you are thinking about the entity of the group. There’s some great thinking right there in all of that. There is something particularly special about work around values and vision in an organisation for me because whenever you give something of yourself to this kind of work you are setting down something in the present that is also fully for people in the future. For me that’s a wonderful feeling of paving the way for others.

Humanness is one of the values that we have decided upon, and just look at the words that surround this value… I hope they make your heart sing as much as they do mine. I didn’t use this term as one of my values three years ago, but I am pretty sure it’s going in my personal top five now. Look how beautifully it goes with poetry and think how wonderful it is when it is also evident in the world of business. I can’t think of a better way of ensuring that the people you work with give the best of themselves and recognise their own value than by having humanness in the mix.

Descendant from my first poetry collection Magnifying Glass seems an apt choice for this week’s poem, and if you’re in a sharing mood I’d love to know what you are descended from or what values are most important to you.

DESCENDANT

I am descended from smugglers.

I hold the darkness of tunnels inside me;

hushed voices, past midnight, alert my ears.

I am descended from strong-armed men,

the readers of the sea.

I am descended from those who roam.

I hold the restlessness of wild words;

dawn hours tempt me with their with offers of peace.

I am descended from storied women,

the tellers of old tales.

I am descended from the unknown.

I hold onto sunsets, dark dreams

and forests.

Reckless whispers ride my thoughts

the essence of my being.

POEMS TO MATCH A TEATOWEL

This morning I have to wait for the cool breeze to blow towards me. When it does it brings rosemary and grass. Before that the first scent hanging in the air is curry powder and spices, and I remember clearing the out-of-date jars and stacking them in the recycling box by the front door.

At text says this week’s photo is a stuffed animal in the air. This is true, but I also say it is Ronnie jumping for joy and somersaulting on the promenade at Prestatyn. It is also a celebration of a moment in time and the sea in all its churned up grey-brown glory.

A coastal walk to blow the cobwebs off is always on my list of self-care things to do, and this week’s trip to the seaside did the trick. I like walking in my local town, and I like walking in the forest nearby, but there is a particular joy to walking at the coast that delights me. The fresh air, the sound of the waves and the ever-changing view as the tide comes in or goes out offer the kind of refreshment that reaches mind, body and soul.

My brain felt as though it was crammed full of ideas this week as I set about writing some new anniversary poems. I have always loved my anniversary tea towel which shows me the traditional symbol for each wedding anniversary, and I have enjoyed choosing specific presents over the years for my wife that match these. However it was when I was asked to write a poem for a husband to give to his wife on their jade anniversary that I became determined to do more anniversary poetry writing. I was flattered to be asked and to be recognised as a poet who could turn their hand to such things and I crafted the words carefully. This then got me thinking about using poems as small gifts or for cards for people I knew. They were well received, and I felt myself at the beginnings of a slowly evolving project. I recently had the opportunity to bring the jade poem to a different couple, and then when I was working on a different poem last week I had the idea that it would be super cool to have written a poem for all of the anniversaries. A great idea, but when I slowed down a little I realised this doesn’t exactly tie in with the way I write. I need time and I had to shake off my feeling that I wanted them all done in the next couple of days like a set of Pokémon ready to be collected. And of course there is more to it than preparing the poems. On my website each digital download sits behind a ‘label’ and it was making these labels that sent me into a whirl of believing I sort of knew how to do it, asking Kath to remind me how to do it, doing it successfully and then needing to change a background colour and promptly forgetting how I had done it! All that kept me amused for quite some time and perhaps that puts into context why a walk beside the sea was the perfect treat this week.

Thinking of the properties of some metals and precious stones while writing this week set me thinking about the poem I wrote early on in my MA. It featured in A New Manchester Alphabet, and because I asked my brother to tell me some facts about graphene to enhance my scientific knowledge before I set to work it became a love poem for him. And because I have shared this poem on my blog recently, I will also include a poem about 316L stainless steel (also not on the tea towel) which was first published in a Molecules Unlimited Anthology.

Here’s to all the poems that celebrate moments and love.

Graphene

Perhaps, before their pencil, in that building

it was in me – that flat form carbon atom;

hexagonally honeycombed

undiscovered and waiting.

And before that, did it come from a star?

Maybe it was once inside you.

You are a study in graphene:

cleaved graphite, harder than diamond,

stronger than steel.

Exceptional.

L Stands for Low

316L stainless steel – a love poem

They say you can’t be easily damaged

that you can be bent into different shapes

and forms.

But before they take you to the sea

they need to consider  

how submerged you might become

and whether you will let yourself

be rinsed by the rain.

CRUSHED LOVE HEARTS

This morning a cool breeze feels like a refreshing contrast after a super-hot weekend. It brings with it only the smell of smoke.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a person taking a selfie. It is indeed and it is me taking a selfie in front of part of Kath’s stand at Wolverhampton Racecourse. I was looking to see if I could find a good angle for our pre-show photo while she was having a wander round, and I rather like this picture so I kept it!

This show gave us the hottest temperatures for a show set up that we have ever seen, and I could definitely feel the importance of staying hydrated! Lunch at shows is always peanut butter in rolls – easy to prepare wherever we are staying and a nice simple protein hit. Often there are chocolate bar snacks in the lunch bag too. I always used to have one of these in the late afternoon when things were getting quieter on the sales front, but this was not a sensible option this time given the temperatures so I decided that love heart sweets would make a satisfying alternative. I like the little sugar burst on my tongue and I enjoy the little messages (although I am not so keen on the emoji faces, but I guess they have adapted to the times for a younger audience than me). I also like the random eating of them without even reading them! In a bid to share the love during the show, I attempted to do what I used to do when I was young… crack a tube in half to share with a friend… reader the tubes these days do not snap so instead I handed over an interestingly mangled tube with some very crushed sweets in the middle.

Kath and I saw a ‘wild Tiffany’ at the show… Tiffany is one of Kath’s shawl designs, and it was lovely to see someone wearing it in beautiful shades of bluey-green. Seeing Kath’s designs in the wild is a particularly lovely part of yarn shows, as is hearing the compliments about Kath’s patterns. All this mixed in with a range of conversations with interesting people keeps each show fresh and different. I never know who I’m going to meet or what the conversations will be about, but I can guarantee there will be much to keep me amused and entertained even when I am looking after the stand on my own. I love these snippets of time and they are a great contrast to my one-to-one work or my very quiet poetry writing. I do sometimes think about taking something of my own to do in the quieter times, but actually it is rather nice just to lean into those moments and to be still and quiet surrounded by colour and pattern and collective creativity. And I chuckle now at the newly pivoting Sue three years ago who didn’t feel like they had a clue about this world of yarn shows that Kath inhabited, and who certainly didn’t think it was possible to look after the stand for afternoons at a time. And now here I am ready, willing and able!

Here’s a poem I wrote some years ago about that feeling of not fitting in…

Clapping

You can hear your own clapping

louder than anyone else’s.

You are not matching the rhythm

of anyone in this room.

Soon they will be looking at you

willing you to stop.

You try to change the way

your hands hit one another

but you cannot unhollow the sound.