SHADES OF GREEN AND POETRY

Last night the moon was full and it was Hunter’s Moon. This morning the air feels cold and fresh. It brings the essence of marzipan.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a person holding yarn, and when I change it to square it becomes a person with blue hair and glasses. It is both of these, and it is Kath with two different shades of green wool. The photo was taken to help Kath decide which of these shades she would prefer to knit a new cardigan in. I love colour, but I am not the most reliable in knowing which shade is best for such things so with the help of this photo Kath was able to make her purchase with confidence.

I haven’t been skipping much this week (just the once… across from the trolley bay to the car at Aldi), but my heart has been made happy by other things. On Thursday I practised my map reading skills to travel to Manchester for a poetry evening with ‘Carol Ann Duffy and Friends’. For this event her friend was Liz Lochhead, and her guests were E Walker and Tom Branfoot. This gave us a lovely evening of words including some new poems from our host. If you live close enough to Manchester then I would highly recommend popping along to one of these events at The Poetry Library. Tickets are free and you get a good hour of good poetry.

The journey was in fact quite simple in that it was: drive to Asda, turn right and then follow the purple signs. I like that kind of journey because it remains as an ‘Oh I can find this again’ in my brain. One thing I didn’t do before setting off was check the opening time of The Poetry Library… we got there at 16:32 which was two minutes after it had shut. Luckily there was plenty of time to browse the Jean Sprackland exhibition when we returned for the evening reading event.

I do have a sat nav and I do use it, but I also like to know in my own head where I am going when I am travelling to the outskirts of a city so I like my simplified version of the instructions and the fact that I have added this to my list of places Sue can find!

I was quite happy to just let the sat nav guide me along wiggly roads in North Wales this week to find Ffarm Hall so that Kath and I could enjoy a meal out in celebration of her birthday. Some of the journey saw us following a road that looked like a river on the map which was a definite contrast to motorway journeys. The sky was dark and the stars were silver when we arrived which made it extra magical. We had a lovely time feasting, and we revelled in the fact that because the whole menu was plant-based we could select anything at all. That’s a super feeling and we indulged in three courses. We also plan to return so that we can sample more dishes!

The Bloodaxe Books Launch Reading with Jane Clarke, Carolyn Forché and Chase Twichell gave me another lovely reason to lose myself in poetry this week. I am so glad it was available online because I couldn’t make any of the recent Carolyn Forché tour dates. There was a moment in the conversation after the reading, where the poets were talking about a poem being a moment in time. I found myself talking about this with someone during the week too, and the fact that sometimes a poem only exists because of a moment in time. We reflected on the fact that sometimes when you look back on a poem you notice how much things have changed or that you wouldn’t express it like that now. And isn’t that one of the joys of a poem? To be a perfect place to set things down from a moment in time

This poem, which was published by ‘Ink, Sweat and Tears’ shortly after it was written in 2021, is a definite setting down of a moment in time, and without that time it would not exist…

THIS WAS ONCE A GOOD POEM

but it has eaten cheese and pickle rolls for a week now

and it can’t work out why the vitamins aren’t working.

It rocks in the chair until its eyes are too tired to see

and has scared itself with thoughts of Autumn spiders

under glasses in the hallway.

It is wondering if it is true that conkers in corners

keep arachnids at bay

and is now standing in the dark

sniffing last year’s horse chestnuts

desperate to find their scent.

A PELICAN IS DANCING ON THE PATIO

This morning it is dark when I go outside. First light is slowly approaching, and when I inhale it brings cold air into in my nostrils which carries the tints of greenery.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a lined paper with gold writing on it. It is, and it reads ‘A Pelican on the Patio’.

This week found me giving titles to the blog entries I hadn’t titled. There were quite a few near the beginning that had Singing As The Darkness Lifts as their headings followed simply by a number. I saw that it had taken me a couple of months to think about my titling from a reader’s point of view when I started blogging, and thus to figure out that it would be much more interesting for readers to read a title before clicking on an entry.

So this was the week that I realised I had not invented titles from the start, and I noticed because I wanted to find the picture that accompanies this week’s blog. I knew I had referred to it somewhere in my blogging so a key word search brought it up for me and alerted me to my lack of titles way back then. My thinking this week has been about many things and it has included line breaks in poetry.

I love seeing where poets choose to break their lines and I so admire a great line break. It brings me great joy when I see it done well and I aim to improve my work in this area.

So this week I was editing some poems and thinking about how effectively I had broken the lines. After a while it was becoming laborious and not very productive, so I went for a walk to clear my head. As I was pacing out, I remembered the time I stole a ‘word break’ from a newspaper article about a discovery in the woods… I was lying in bed one morning completing my daily word puzzle and contemplating the things in my day. I happened then to skim the news just to check in on the world before my shower. After reading the main articles I came to one about a discovery in a wood. And it was with such delight that I saw the word broken over two lines so that it became ‘disco very’. My poet brain was alive and I recalled a dream where I had looked out of the window to see a pelican dancing on the patio. That was it. The two things had to go together. And later that day I wrote the poem.

I wrote it straight into a document on my computer even though I had prepped a page for it in my writer’s journal the morning after the dream. The poem was always going to be written, but it might not have had discovery as ‘disco very’ if I had written it sooner.

Brokenness was also a mini theme at the weekend when there was galloping and skipping at a yarn show. I made the discovery at the start of the weekend that my skipping ability seemed to be broken. With determination I fixed it, and then by the end of the show it seemed to be broken again! The only way for me to bring back my skipping ability was to take all the things out of my pockets so that I wasn’t weighed down and to imagine myself as a child again as I began the movement! This caused much hilarity to me and those around me so if you see me skipping along in the future you will know I am keeping my muscle memory and youthful memory active at the same time. It’s good to laugh and it’s great to gallop and skip at yarn shows. I have often been a galloper in a supermarket carpark so it was nice to be an indoor galloper, and even to gallop to cut the ribbon (gently tear the hazard tape) to welcome visitors to our section each morning.

My thanks to Ink, Sweat and Tears who gave this poem its first home and to Black Eyes Publishing UK who included it in Welcome to the Museum of a Life where it takes its place in The Gallery of Finality.

A PELICAN IS DANCING ON THE PATIO

And there is a disco

very deep in the woods.

The pelican is tapping out its rhythm

and no one can quite name the tune

even though it is right there

on the tip of tongues.

And the people that know about the disco

very deep in the woods

are glad they are not there

under the lights and rotor blades.

The pelican

is making quite some draught now

its wings high and flapping.

It turns in circles

ecstatic in its dance.

And the people that know about the disco

very deep in the woods are checking

on their loved ones

and they are desperately trying to name

what that bird is dancing to.

A PEDESTRIAN WALK AND A ‘P’

This morning the air brings me the smell of trees. It could be fallen leaves or sycamore scent. There is drizzle in the air.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a piece of wood on the ground. I say it is a photo which makes a nice addition to my #ElasticBandPhotos collection, and that it was taken on a blustery afternoon this week.

The photo brought me joy at the end of a walk that had become rather pedestrian and consequently was one that I wasn’t really enjoying. I had been feeling ‘under the weather’ and went for the walk because I thought I should. I think I spent almost the entire 45 minutes thinking about the hot chocolate I was going to have when I got home. No particular attention to the cows or sheep or weather or indeed the music on my playlist. Of course I know that shoulds aren’t really the way to go, but still I put my boots on and went. Thank goodness for the moment of amusement at the end of my mini trek when I saw the discarded elastic band on the ground. I laughed at the fact that it could be a letter ‘p’ given that 50% of feeling under the weather was related to floaters in my left eye and the other 50% was a bladder issue.

I thoroughly enjoyed my hot chocolate when I got home, and resolved to switch off future shoulds when it comes to walks that I don’t fancy, and fast track myself to the comfort of a warm drink instead. Pleasingly walks on different days afterwards were chosen because they felt like nice things to do, as well as being helpful for my general fitness. This helped me to stop lingering in ‘I had a rubbish walk’ mode.

Taking time to reflect on the elements of joy in the week felt much needed, and I was pleased to find all these things dotted around in my seven days:

  • a masterclass on metaphor
  • 2 zoom rooms of poetry
  • editing time
  • receiving positive feedback
  • a kind and helpful optician
  • a kind and helpful nurse
  • caring messages and conversations
  • remembering to look up sayings if I am going to be using them, and finding out that it is probable that ‘under the weather’ has a nautical origin related to sailors going below deck.

Here’s to all the joys that sprinkle themselves amongst the grey bits, and to the people that help us weather the storm.

A dream poem seems fitting to end with. And this one was a complete dream, not one that needed a redoze to finish it, but it had quite a dramatic ending. It is exhibited in the gallery of dreams in ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’ published by Black Eyes Publishing UK.

I’VE NOTHING TO OFFER THE WHITE HORSE I DREAM OF

Head down shy

a white horse senses me,

whinnies – as if a desire to gallop

is rising inside.

She comes right up to the fence.

Spider-leg eyelashes frame her eyes,

defined jawbone

makes her almost too thin.

I want to touch

the coarse hair of her mane

to know if her blood warms it.

I am wishing now for an apple

or a carrot.

As if reading my mind her mouth opens,

those pupils flash wild.

I have nothing to offer.

A cloud of hayed breath

puffs between us.

Before I can release myself from her gaze,

she clamps my arm.

When I was young

I used to bite my forearms

to feel the resistance of flesh

imprint my incisors.

I bit my brother once.

Now there is a horse,

with blunted yellowed teeth,

latched on hard, biting my skin to burst it

to taste the metal of my blood.

CATERPILLAR OR SHOELACE

This morning the air brings a rather disconcerting scent of fish, a pale blue and pink sunrise shades the sky and a bird I cannot name sounds in the distance.

Alt text says this week’s photo is a close up of a caterpillar. I say it is two photos side by side, one showing a close up of a caterpillar, and one showing a close up of a section of discarded shoelace which resembles a caterpillar. No elephant hawk moth caterpillars have been observed this year in my garden, and I am rather hoping they have been quietly going about their business in the fuchsia bush without me noticing them. I don’t want to think that there haven’t been any. My camera reel shows me that late September is about the latest that I have seen them so I guess for this year I shall resign myself to the fact there will be no new sightings. The shoelace photo still makes me chuckle, and I think in the year I took it I began expecting to see the caterpillars every time I went out for a walk because the one in the front garden was visible most days making slow progress in the fuchsia as well as exploring the lawn nearby. The bush is now super huge, as if it wants to take over the whole corner of the garden, so perhaps it serves as the ultimate hiding place for all manner of creatures.

I recently found my first conker of the season during a stroll in someone else’s town, and I brought it home to place by the front door. Perhaps it is true that the scent that they emit whilst drying is a deterrent for large spiders, perhaps I have just set myself a reassuring ritual for each autumn. Feeling its smoothness reminded me that I had written a poem about a conker so I was eager to rummage through my poetry files to find it and see if I thought it was any good on a reread. I do rather like it, and it was fun to receive some positive feedback about it when I shared it on social media and then in a writing workshop. And my thanks to a person from Australia in the workshop who asked me what a conker was, and therefore reminded me that my thought about taking one with me would have been a good idea after all. Sometimes I overthink things and talk myself out of them whilst wondering if people will think I am silly or childish for taking a conker or my special glass marble to a poetry workshop. And actually those are the things that run through the core of me and make me me… I will take this as the perfect reminder to pop such things in my workshop bag in the future.

Good friends are a wonderful reminder of what’s in the core of you. People who really see you and know you, and I felt my soul become as shiny as that conker during the week when I went for minty tea with a lovely friend. Mix that in with shenanigans in a zoom room and a night out at the theatre to see Susan Calman and my soul felt super zingy.

There’s a romantic nostalgia that has been rising in me these last few weeks and music and sunset drives, as well as all those good conversations and laughter have been asking me to notice the change of season, and how I am standing in it. As a gentle nod to this I have decorated the fireplace with autumnal things. I am motivated to dust things properly when there is going to be a new arrangement, and I have loved seeing the simple display of ‘things’ that signifies I am observing the tilt of the earth. I have even been heard to say that I am going to make the mantelpiece seasonal every month.

Here’s to friends, to candles that can be lit in the darker evenings, and to remembering that licking conkers is not a good idea.

Conker

You slip out smooth;

your emergence perfect gloss.

You are Autumn

seemingly solid as wood.

I pocket you,

roll you between finger and thumb.

Palm you

as my lucky charm.

Yet there is a hint of death in you.

And a tree.

I am holding you still as I walk.

Daring myself to lick my fingers

for the taste of you.

A SWISH, A GALLOP AND TWO LOOSE SCREWS

This morning I cannot detect a specific scent in the air, and alt text is not offering me any suggestions for the photograph associated with this blog! This seems to reflect the fact I was late getting up after a weekend away at a yarn show, and my gears are not yet fully oiled and cranking.

To describe this week’s photo I would say it is Kath in her pompom crown ready for day one at Yarndale. She is in a selfie with me, and I am ready to look after the stand so she can go and teach during the weekend. Also in the picture we have a beautiful alpaca who definitely seemed to be posing for a photo early one morning when I went to ask how its day had started.

I love the fact that a yarn show for me is a wonderful blend of work and curiosity and playfulness. When we were getting everything ready to take with us for the weekend I even referred to the patterns as “our patterns” which shows that I feel very invested in this creative world of yarn. I now know much more about knitting and yarn than I have ever done, and I have Kath’s patterns memorised in a Pokédex kind of way, so I am pretty helpful when it comes to looking after things for her. I still am not quite sure about what happens if you knit something in 4-ply instead of DK, and am therefore not confident offering an answer on any such question, but there are always plenty of experts around me at events who do know such things.

There were lots of lovely compliments for Kath’s work during conversations over the two days, and I always love hearing these. In fact it makes my heart sing.

For me there were lots of first this weekend… the early morning shepherding of some sheep back into their pen, Yarndale versions of #SwishOrWaft, some human galloping in the aisles, and some wonderfully relaxing colouring-in time, along with my first ever experience of not feeling cold at any point during the show. It’s good to experience new things alongside the bits that I am expecting.

I love making the little videos to find out whether there is a preference for swishing or wafting whilst wearing a large shawl and love the panache with which people will get involved. It’s good to play. In fact I thrive on play and humour, so I am very grateful for all these kinds of interactions during the show, especially when there is also time for a gallop and neigh in the aisles with a like-minded soul. This makes this non-knitter feel like they have found their own little place to be amongst all things woolly.

I also found time in the quiet of Sunday morning before the show day began to stand on my own in my assigned sheep/cattle pen and draft a poem. It feels rather lovely to come home with some words to work with, and when this poem finds its place in the world it will be fun to remember exactly where it began its shaping.

In honour of the fact that the Harvest Moon featured in the rear-view mirror on my journey home and was there waiting for me at the end of my road when I completed my journey, I offer this poem. It’s a found poem, which I found in the traditional hymn ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’ when I was writing poems for each full moon in 2022. And after it was found it was gifted its title.

Having just reread the title of this blog I realise I have not mentioned the two loose screws! I was entertained this weekend by finding a brass coloured, hollow screw in our stand on Saturday. And then on Sunday there was a black screw. I kept them both safe in case someone announced they had lost such things. When Kath asked me if they fitted together I discovered that they had become a fidget toy because they did indeed! They are now displayed in a jar alongside my two beach marbles.

Here’s the Harvest Moon poem from my coffee table book Vortex Over Wave…

STOP EATING THE LOVE HEARTS

We scatter snow warmth,

swell soft gifts.

Thank you, thank you.

Near wayside evening birds, 

more bread.

Thank you.

Then all our food gifts –

love hearts.

Refrain.

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.