I have added some videos on my Driftwood page – including the Padstow ‘Oss on the second link there
Author: A. Gouedard
Gannets
in an empty room
i held my breath
in silence
with thoughts of a lonely granite rock
far out to sea
where the cry of birds is deafening
where the surf spray rises in air
and the high sky above is grey
A poem by Tamara
Old shell
Empty shell covered with wrinkles
Pearl shine brushed away by winds and tears.
Drops of memories dried by layers of sand.
Sad eyes looking blindly over my shoulders.
I stop and stretch one arm forward.
Touching the white unnourished locks.
Sudden rush of images inside dead eyes.
A smile between the drapes looks surreal.
Little sound comes out of the bottomless cavern.
Fragile like the fairies wings
Sparkling like children voices on the snow.
Just one smile, filled with tender memories.
Short.
Gone.
Silence is back inside the empty shell.
(This was written by Tamara, not me – having seen, through a window, an old woman out in the winter street)
There is a Love, Like No Other
There is a love, like no other
I try to find the words to tell
It swells the heart
And swims in the throat
A golden burst
Both high and deep
More than passion
It glows, not burns
Soft and wild
Sublime embrace
That reaches out
Explodes, yet stays within
It reaches for the Universe
Strong and peaceful
Always growing, always huge
Yet dwells inside a human heart
Heart-long-leap
Boom-gush-torrent
Doors flung open
Wide and warm
No touch or kiss
Can quite express it
I need a word that says all this
But I can only call it Love
Old Man Willow
I am Old Man Willow
I nurture bees
I am called The Honey Tree
I am loved by Thrush and Hawk
The Cat and Hare confide in me
I shelter Mistletoe and Primrose
Primrose juice inspires the Bard
I gave dreams to Orpheus
I am of the Sacred Grove
Honoured in the Wisdom Old
To talk to me, it is not hard.
I am home to resting Cranes
Who like to build their nests nearby
Together we will bring good fortune
And many stories we enfold.
I protect the rivers banks
I am first and last in leaf.
Rest by me
Come give me thanks
I soothe all grief
Lay beneath me
Watch the shadows
And the flickering of Sun
Filter through my sighing branches
I am Old Man Willow
You need have no fear of me
If you walk gently, kindly, in the wood
And damage not any tree
We talked to our kids about souls
hard to be a parent sometimes when they ask these questions but good for your own clear thinking and lovely too, especially when years later you realise they took all you said on board and kept it
(except my son wanted to come back as a teddy bear and i imagine he must have changed his mind about that by now)
Swinging Bridge at Babcock State Park, West Virginia
“Hey Mom, are trees living things or living beings?”
Our nine year old son looked into the forest then up at me as we hiked side by side along a gurgling brook. His dad and sister walked a few steps ahead of us. Upstream was the Glade Creek Grist Mill in West Virginia, a rustic wooden building with a pitched roof. Today its wet planks were framed by yellowing autumn trees.
“I guess that depends on what you mean by living being,” I said. “I think of a being as — ” I tried to think of words that would be familiar to him. I failed. “As a sentient being — something that has a soul.” The path was littered in gold, red, and toast brown leaves, and I kicked at a drift with my leather hiking shoe.
“Personally, I think of trees…
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Reunion
after seven years
I still can’t believe
I wont ever see my father again
I still can’t believe
I wont see him again
this thought repeats and repeats
rolling circuits around in my brain
until it looses momentum
and comes to rest
like a roulette ball
in an unpredictable place
why am i even trying to imagine
I wont see him again
when all of my elders
as they grew older
told me we would
not one of us knows
until we go
I can think as I like
until then
Ten Things My Daughter Should Know
one poem from many i liked on this site
Sonnet 116 – Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
I posted this because it’s my favourite sonnet and I believe in it not just in relationships but in life – Love is the star to every wandering bark
Travel Tales – # 1
Having seen a phrase about a mountain path beset with tigers I recalled a dream I had in which my dream horse (a frequent visitor) was unusually allowing me to guide and choose our path (usually I just go where I am taken) and I began to ascend a very steep mountain track and my horse began to struggle but yet still obeyed me until I felt ashamed of the damage I was doing to the horse so I stopped and apologised. My horse immediately forgave me and turned to pastures and galloped to the sea. I took this dream to mean that if we ‘’go with the flow’’, that is Awen, we learn far more than by forcing our own view and decisions upon our life and the way – the sea is not high like a mountain (where perhaps I had foolishly wanted to ‘dominate the peak and look down on all’) but it is a symbol at the very least of the source of life and it ‘’goes with the flow’’, and the moon.
I have also written a poem about a year ago about encountering a dragon in a steep place and the Tower (interspersed with some comments from ordinary daily life when when my dreaming is not looked upon favourably by others). All I longed for was peace by the river (with my muse) in the realm of imagination and the natural flow of the path. Obstacles can be overcome with some determination but most of all with imagination.
Escape from the Tower
Climbing the mountain, trying to reach the tower
Confronted by a dragon, endlessly asking me riddles,
While a great storm gathers all about us
Thunderbolts roar, lightning reflects on my shield
(“What do you do in that room all the time?
What are you thinking about?’’
I stop and get the food
And gather the rubbish that needs to go out)
I am losing my footing on the slippery rocks.
The dragon flashes his eyes with desire
I have to succeed, cannot be overpowered,
I call on the rain to quench his fire
(“Always off in imagination,
What’s wrong with you?
You spend hours on that
And it’s not even true’’)
I answer the final riddle, the dragon steps aside.
My way no longer barred, I struggle on up the mountain.
The tower reaches up to the clouds
Eagles circle above, come to help me in my troubles
(“I know you have talent?
Why don’t you use it?’’
“I work too!’’ i say
“You could work more!’’ says she)
The eagle carries me up to the princess, we hover.
She reaches out to me. I swing her onto the eagles back.
My arm circles her waist, her hair flies in my face.
She leans back on me in relief.
(“You always were some other place,
Even as a child. No different now than ever.
Why can’t you just be normal,
And stay in reality?’’)
We circle together above the now sunlit valleys
Looking down from above, we avoid all the cities and castles
And land in a summer meadow by a singing stream
She adorns herself with flowers, I dream
The Dreaming Path 