tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14512114668983516992024-03-19T03:20:42.950+00:00Lynne ReesWriter, Editor, RunnerLynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.comBlogger338125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-66555297941258784822024-02-14T14:42:00.003+00:002024-02-14T14:44:48.346+00:00Haibun ~ How can I not love her<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANtSVEuMJjAfIkvbfNk-4H_9dydjZ38ieQ2buiioESzWVeX3CjZm24WFD6hSw3Xxy0V7hV_wPzF84xiCRZPDKVZr2XRndAYEDCkF-YlOx1TZxOaeqfGCVyWJUZeV-LadEqU0P-gakWqSLJ59cQbrb2awyOiZYabsetNb0s7Wp3tIhl7tbThGpW4K48xZM/s1521/5%20years%20old.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1521" data-original-width="1198" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANtSVEuMJjAfIkvbfNk-4H_9dydjZ38ieQ2buiioESzWVeX3CjZm24WFD6hSw3Xxy0V7hV_wPzF84xiCRZPDKVZr2XRndAYEDCkF-YlOx1TZxOaeqfGCVyWJUZeV-LadEqU0P-gakWqSLJ59cQbrb2awyOiZYabsetNb0s7Wp3tIhl7tbThGpW4K48xZM/s320/5%20years%20old.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><p>How can I not love her: that open gaze, the contentment of her small smile, her shiny buttons, her curly hair ribboned in the way she requested each morning - ‘two curls up’ - after my mother had teased out the overnight tangles with a large, pink, Betterware comb. </p><p>I think I remember the day: the summer of 1963, my first term at Tirmorfa Infants School, a class at a time marshalled into the assembly hall, the photographer lifting his big camera as we each took our turn in the single wooden chair in the middle of that high-ceilinged room. </p><p>You see that signet ring? I am wearing it now, 61 years later, after finding it last year in an old jewellery box studded with seashells, the silver band split from years of growth, after a silversmith repaired it for me. I cannot see the join. </p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: right;">valentine’s day</div><div style="text-align: right;">loving all the people</div><div style="text-align: right;">I used to be</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnAnAznqChvC5wUotKFXW9NHEQUYg7beaUTr6h50H_K0i-27LO7Sb4w13Nx_4KQbqMhGWmbwdk8pC3a7sMGWk1TZxkq1zwG2hMotrT_muG-O_7pJ_7bZ3XN4en-JS01ffiBDemoIGkHnq12-KrqW8If36y6oQEIJMtWItozyCMifO_MVg2R_5lpot2CVwn/s2204/1.%20Feb%2014th.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2204" data-original-width="1857" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnAnAznqChvC5wUotKFXW9NHEQUYg7beaUTr6h50H_K0i-27LO7Sb4w13Nx_4KQbqMhGWmbwdk8pC3a7sMGWk1TZxkq1zwG2hMotrT_muG-O_7pJ_7bZ3XN4en-JS01ffiBDemoIGkHnq12-KrqW8If36y6oQEIJMtWItozyCMifO_MVg2R_5lpot2CVwn/s320/1.%20Feb%2014th.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaalIO8rTbkz4Z_H_CEEp4F-eDUxDsJOlf_Ht6O6ZPFBoPlscaBauifH0LCmB1kOaGSRXubt30DKYUVR27ncdRjcgsiYb0Pu01ZSLsFcMfara9odN4dfUpV9Wl41gD3OM6ie7TZ9iJi6oQe-oMJRbZlTo3a2Qua0YBDU4TDyfDB4f8wqg0GpT7xMqEfpiI/s732/signet%20ring.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="732" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaalIO8rTbkz4Z_H_CEEp4F-eDUxDsJOlf_Ht6O6ZPFBoPlscaBauifH0LCmB1kOaGSRXubt30DKYUVR27ncdRjcgsiYb0Pu01ZSLsFcMfara9odN4dfUpV9Wl41gD3OM6ie7TZ9iJi6oQe-oMJRbZlTo3a2Qua0YBDU4TDyfDB4f8wqg0GpT7xMqEfpiI/w320-h287/signet%20ring.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> </div><br /><p></p><div><br /></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-78479267039475611292024-02-07T12:42:00.001+00:002024-02-07T12:55:33.237+00:00Poems about and for ordinary people ~ Before<p>My <a href="http://www.lynnerees.com/p/current-project.html" target="_blank">current project</a> of delving into the history of my hometown, through exploring the lives of 'ordinary' people buried in the church and graveyards there, generally favours the medium of prose to the tell extended family stories. But sometimes what I want to say fits into the shape and concentration that poetry offers - a measured and gradual revelation, down the page, of image and emotion.</p><p>When I first started writing poetry it was 'all about me'! I was totally unaware of the idea of needing to craft my experiences and language choices so they spoke to a (much!) wider audience. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK6fpRRshv0MHLj_XKTpAFCMPj9wWrMeHcQ7z__teqXUPEh9dFKYFRcRZjSdEre84MKMP2o6zACDOFFx874ZAVkq9-XFUP7EGMPVDGtiUfWn2uHcU0sJgn2bRmxt6SR5848QurCii00pegStTSxZWK_M916RMunYAJ1yhbM9Sxd_R9CRZBcVZpUrDeu3-J/s2470/ty%20newydd%20asleep.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="2470" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK6fpRRshv0MHLj_XKTpAFCMPj9wWrMeHcQ7z__teqXUPEh9dFKYFRcRZjSdEre84MKMP2o6zACDOFFx874ZAVkq9-XFUP7EGMPVDGtiUfWn2uHcU0sJgn2bRmxt6SR5848QurCii00pegStTSxZWK_M916RMunYAJ1yhbM9Sxd_R9CRZBcVZpUrDeu3-J/s320/ty%20newydd%20asleep.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In 1992 I attended my first ever residential writing course at <a href="https://tynewydd.wales/" target="_blank">Ty Newydd, the National Writing Centre of Wales,</a> in Llanystumdwy on the Lleyn Peninsula in North Wales. The course was called 'Poetry in Mountains' - and, true to the description, we were encouraged to write poems and climb mountains, including a couple of sessions of rock-climbing. And if that wasn't enough to make me fall in love with poetry combined with the natural world, some advice given to me by one of the course leaders, <a href="http://www.terrygifford.co.uk/" target="_blank">Terry Gifford</a>, completely changed my approach to writing. <p></p><p>'At some point, Lynne,' he said, 'Catharsis has to give way to communication.'</p><p>This wasn't just the proverbial light-bulb switiching on. This was a whole stadium of floodlights illuminating my understanding of, and relationship to, writing poetry.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinvlOj7ZiRbnqw2w6cC32KG7guw9yFiG5Jq9V2CutDzdG1Wn8fvoosA0vRWfUFueVSR-jCrr5sFrDRTY91WzpvorHSiVdJ136e1B7rhbxkdiF6yqb-uhd1hJJiLzF8a8jYkuy9rl9b_4K0mTbz319_zCQBwldamt4xWBmz3wWOMr687dSMhzjbbn9tUJtw/s1584/LHTF%20scan.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1584" data-original-width="976" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinvlOj7ZiRbnqw2w6cC32KG7guw9yFiG5Jq9V2CutDzdG1Wn8fvoosA0vRWfUFueVSR-jCrr5sFrDRTY91WzpvorHSiVdJ136e1B7rhbxkdiF6yqb-uhd1hJJiLzF8a8jYkuy9rl9b_4K0mTbz319_zCQBwldamt4xWBmz3wWOMr687dSMhzjbbn9tUJtw/s320/LHTF%20scan.jpg" width="197" /></a></div>My first poetry collection, <i><a href="https://www.parthianbooks.com/products/learning-how-to-fall" target="_blank">Learning How to Fall</a>, </i>was published in 2005 and while I am still proud of that work, I can see how many of those poems rely heavily on poetic craft, the 'fireworks' of writing poetry, if you like: lots of figurative language, intertextuality, the punchy power of line break. These days, I'm more in Philip Larkin's camp, when he said: <p></p><p>“One is constantly conscious of trying to measure the effects of what you have written on someone starting from cold who may not have the experience you have had. This may not sound very significant, but it does cut out an extraordinary number of things which are quite common in other poetry. It cuts out obscurity, it cuts out references to literature and mythology which you cannot be sure they know. It means you are writing fairly simply in the language of ordinary people, using the accepted sense of words and using the accepted grammatical constructions and so on. That is my own practice.”<i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/31/philip-larkin-interview-writing-in-language-of-ordinary-people-1973"> The Guardian from 1973.</a></i></p><p>'The language of ordinary people' is exactly what I need to write about the lives of ordinary people, lives that are often extra-ordinary: experiences shaped by the times they lived through, by the press of events often beyond their control. </p><p>And here is a poem I read at Port Talbot Library in January this year. Over the previous year or so I had located and photographed the graves of all the men and boys at St Mary's, Aberafan who lost their lives to war. Both individual Commonwealth War Grave Commission Portland stone headstones and those memorialised on family graves. <br /><br />Simplicity, like truth, is a powerful thing. </p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Before</b></p><p>We have gathered them here – <br />the men and boys whose names </p><p>are inscribed on Portland stone <br />or memorialised on family graves </p><p>because their bodies lie in foreign fields, <br />or were never found. </p><p>We have conjured them <br />from their births and baptisms, </p><p>from census returns for the streets <br />where they lived. We have met them </p><p>as they were, before<br />their names on telegrams broke </p><p>the hearts and fractured the lives <br />of families, of mothers and wives. </p><p>Let us remember them now <br />before those cruel years </p><p>obliterated so much light, <br />when they still whistled and sang, </p><p>when they still had dreams, <br />when their thoughts were full </p><p>of Saturday football, <br />or the local rugby team, </p><p>or a pint with their dads, or sons,<br />at The Prince of Wales, The Avonvale </p><p>or The Craddock Arms. <br />When they were still holding </p><p>their children in their arms, <br />or trying to win a kiss from girls </p><p>they’d met on the sands,<br />at a dance or a market stall. </p><p>Fathers, brothers, husbands, sons <br />before they fell. Here they are </p><p>tipping the caps on their heads<br />or rolling up shirt sleeves, </p><p>or cigarettes, slapping their mates <br />on the back, their smiles and laughter </p><p>predating gunfire and shells. <br />And they go home</p><p>to those they loved, who loved them. <br />And us too, </p><p>their lives and deaths, <br />we will remember them. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFoPtLrUTbxBXeCOtWX-TCZzwxw28tG5HUP1_wlEFxWegQhJYutQ_Nl_IN6VywxVUaeQ7HB8titJAtlBxxUp2JXAS2bvidqd__ePQ89lt45JU-mQu7pkoqIy7awk8CBJYVwz4HJLR4s1bSmPLSbEoFI0gg7PQmNa6ypDVXmaB9TqfhGjuFouwo16EZAHX/s4000/backs%20of%20graves%20and%20trees-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2559" data-original-width="4000" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFoPtLrUTbxBXeCOtWX-TCZzwxw28tG5HUP1_wlEFxWegQhJYutQ_Nl_IN6VywxVUaeQ7HB8titJAtlBxxUp2JXAS2bvidqd__ePQ89lt45JU-mQu7pkoqIy7awk8CBJYVwz4HJLR4s1bSmPLSbEoFI0gg7PQmNa6ypDVXmaB9TqfhGjuFouwo16EZAHX/w640-h410/backs%20of%20graves%20and%20trees-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><p><br /><br /><br /> </p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-45895496974753316692023-12-27T14:25:00.003+00:002023-12-27T14:25:57.706+00:00Happy New Year - Keep dancing!<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ydYA9FZ8zFXJg4OSgLcK2wXzt-19PkGLixZhrLjsybcNZxJXwNkA8xjAD54jSqaS1Cr1rpTVST9NYDIOtohXza1zUxdEbiklMBiYQ4NYCjQjjYhah8YbYzwYrBH4HmbHLBlzJ6hemjuxrpFTX-Wo_kwZeIaGAiacTINfhRjEvwT67M3NtKniXtCBKd9x/s2181/2023%20CARD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2181" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ydYA9FZ8zFXJg4OSgLcK2wXzt-19PkGLixZhrLjsybcNZxJXwNkA8xjAD54jSqaS1Cr1rpTVST9NYDIOtohXza1zUxdEbiklMBiYQ4NYCjQjjYhah8YbYzwYrBH4HmbHLBlzJ6hemjuxrpFTX-Wo_kwZeIaGAiacTINfhRjEvwT67M3NtKniXtCBKd9x/w640-h440/2023%20CARD.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">Together in 2024</span></i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">By the time Tess and Claudia exhort us to 'Keep dancing!' we are too settled into our evenings, too comfy, to do anything about it. So how about us all doing it now ... putting down this card, getting out of the chair, or up from the sofa, taking the hand of someone we love, or even placing our own hand on our own shoulder, perhaps even over our own heart, and saying out loud, into the air of the New Year, 'Keep dancing!’ And look, here we all are, smiling and moving forward together.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">Happy New Year</span></div><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"><div style="text-align: center;">Blwyddyn Newydd Dda</div></span><p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-48551809290963480312023-12-01T14:29:00.002+00:002023-12-18T12:22:14.324+00:00Haibun ~ Beauty, Memory<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQC1XfhSHMY6jNGlU-qY53rVj15w2ZS393gOFk4K0MBaqTap53tiRHtCgflNLY0aIKkrLWqSr0sHByNcoakScWCatUqxrhRW9i-5b8tN_dG8ui6rOf42CVYVZeyHbms9h-IvWcVnmiixc1p6T3NomVu8OO-p6xJuJSz36a63R6mcpDI-yC6Tn0799B5mep" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2925" data-original-width="3295" height="569" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQC1XfhSHMY6jNGlU-qY53rVj15w2ZS393gOFk4K0MBaqTap53tiRHtCgflNLY0aIKkrLWqSr0sHByNcoakScWCatUqxrhRW9i-5b8tN_dG8ui6rOf42CVYVZeyHbms9h-IvWcVnmiixc1p6T3NomVu8OO-p6xJuJSz36a63R6mcpDI-yC6Tn0799B5mep=w640-h569" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><i>In memory of Joyce Rees ~ 1st December 1932 - 25th March 2021</i></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I don’t know why I decided to keep the two small, gold-rimmed, Royal Albert plates that were on display, in the same position, for years, in the old oak cupboard in the front room. After all, what use would I have for them, these bone china, fragile, smaller-than-saucer plates in my kitchen of plain white, dishwasher proof crockery? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But … they share our evenings now. They’ve held a single welshcake, chocolate truffles, a crescent or two of frozen mango, and, more recently, slices of Waitrose’s, or Tesco’s, or M&S’s iced fruit cake, the ‘bar’ one, not the round one. They feel as if they were made for this – sweet, rich cake crested with icing and marzipan on a halo of pink roses and a flourish of gold. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We can’t always know what will matter to us. Sometimes it’s worth ignoring the voices of logic and reason and, at the last minute, slipping beauty and memory into a small box and forgetting about them … until we don’t.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">late autumn sunlight</div><div style="text-align: left;">illuminates a field of frost</div><div style="text-align: left;">memories of my parents</div></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-25282920102099915802023-11-24T13:56:00.001+00:002023-11-24T14:13:45.525+00:00Poem ~ Saving ourselves<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ZE5MnhuhYa_OHdORMuQVozlS1mW13cGMH4EzkH8QzVB4eOOkpFmdghNY72oj2UiP9wj_cvKnj5gCevGbkiK7nkjzUALsYdg5YT5UGBMI94QQbUS1vOuBPq-BNdR0bbnahA9GB02HC2kwnxMkIqlx24ErTKcu9P4j8kkZ-m4ggtcWBNAoLDGQteEGmjcS/s3041/20231122_111926.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2502" data-original-width="3041" height="526" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ZE5MnhuhYa_OHdORMuQVozlS1mW13cGMH4EzkH8QzVB4eOOkpFmdghNY72oj2UiP9wj_cvKnj5gCevGbkiK7nkjzUALsYdg5YT5UGBMI94QQbUS1vOuBPq-BNdR0bbnahA9GB02HC2kwnxMkIqlx24ErTKcu9P4j8kkZ-m4ggtcWBNAoLDGQteEGmjcS/w640-h526/20231122_111926.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><b>Saved</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I have to stop and run back to take a second look </div><div>at what I think I’ve seen through the trees – </div><div><br /></div><div>the horns of some monster, a bouldered head </div><div>and shoulders of beaten silver. And there he is </div><div><br /></div><div>grasping a spear and a blade, Defender of </div><div>the post and rail fence, fields and house beyond, </div><div><br /></div><div>Guardian of the small metal pig at his feet. </div><div>There’s no one else here to enter the myth of him </div><div><br /></div><div>with me, no one to wonder at the heave of his chest </div><div>as it rises and falls under a glint of moonlight, </div><div><br /></div><div>his huge head lifting to the stars, his fearlessness, </div><div>his sweet protection of the little pig. I imagine him </div><div><br /></div><div>striding across the fields towards my home, taking up </div><div>position on the soft earth between the bare apricot trees. </div><div><br /></div><div>The monsters aren’t always who we think they are.</div><div>We learn to save ourselves with our own stories. </div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglW0xcN3fbPDGIla5qYpiC7rL5gtdCw8gjK4KV4-ADJXLsp9H-u2H6ANTtsiracdAzWsT4V2YGWsiSDtXLQ1sUwHTogCCuOaouAnWyt2NCVBuGk6-V5BoXkZnfFqsAo_NPOJwzaDlvu6kNMe3IVtrW-3X0Du3RuIkQevFcT5dAf8p8oQRcprOyxAmlEGwE/s1449/monster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1108" data-original-width="1449" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglW0xcN3fbPDGIla5qYpiC7rL5gtdCw8gjK4KV4-ADJXLsp9H-u2H6ANTtsiracdAzWsT4V2YGWsiSDtXLQ1sUwHTogCCuOaouAnWyt2NCVBuGk6-V5BoXkZnfFqsAo_NPOJwzaDlvu6kNMe3IVtrW-3X0Du3RuIkQevFcT5dAf8p8oQRcprOyxAmlEGwE/w640-h490/monster.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-14072203997623327472023-11-17T17:28:00.001+00:002024-01-30T14:14:34.446+00:00Poem ~ Nothing, Not Nothing<div style="text-align: left;">The air is full of silk today. As I run the footpath </div><div>along the edge of the salad fields towards the woods </div><div><br /></div><div>I have to brush the finest of airborne cobwebs </div><div>from my face, again and again, nothing to see </div><div><br /></div><div>in my gloves, only what I can feel across </div><div>my cheeks and lips, almost, but not quite, nothing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Is there a name for the arena that exists between </div><div>the visible and the invisible, between the detectable </div><div><br /></div><div>and the undetectable? A place where boundaries </div><div>have been polished into insignificance? </div><div><br /></div><div>Is that the place where poetry finds us?</div><div>Or if not poetry whatever you would like to call it – </div><div><br /></div><div>a place of wonder or stillness at your centre, </div><div>connection, quiet epiphany?</div><div><br /></div><div>I imagine the spiderlings climbing grass stalks, fence posts, </div><div>pointing their abdomens into the air and releasing </div><div><br /></div><div>their silk and when the thread is long enough </div><div>how the wind catches it and the spiderlings </div><div><br /></div><div>lift into the air like kites on a string of silk.</div><div>Some days I am running through the marvellous. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi34zp5973LxmECk77MxayIx21K7-SVgN0fokcF6Y4_3YDdGtwKotaVGc8gLfsb0B7bBNkw3fSMdbmCmZsjgkbp1IhwHKvYx4TxbMowvIoBcA9WuAXJgDEWIodsSVm9iiBzuXuFa5ifj4AEnsj4lTr-XgjZcgAnmbLqU5LKwoAWSWx4RUs6s3wwPGkXJf1/s682/ballooning%20spider.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="682" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi34zp5973LxmECk77MxayIx21K7-SVgN0fokcF6Y4_3YDdGtwKotaVGc8gLfsb0B7bBNkw3fSMdbmCmZsjgkbp1IhwHKvYx4TxbMowvIoBcA9WuAXJgDEWIodsSVm9iiBzuXuFa5ifj4AEnsj4lTr-XgjZcgAnmbLqU5LKwoAWSWx4RUs6s3wwPGkXJf1/w640-h420/ballooning%20spider.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Photo courtsesy of <a href="https://www.rsb.org.uk/biologist-features/gone-with-the-wind" target="_blank">Royal Society of Biology </a></div><p><br /></p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-39284365796305507112023-09-06T11:23:00.001+01:002023-12-26T17:09:48.820+00:00Poem<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnNC7SBgp--W5IAsCAAYWhaVIFoQKaEikAH4oBdWMYqLU6LttfFtsjAede3YcYbGKhbnbeRsDUMHNP12QDom_2Hn64Uh1d_1jha54NHK6VCes-OkbHjio50RkmcRehy5FJPrY0EfXWt5sGplDVyVsMiX7EvFLDlteFrs0KgunZF79kvUW_LFS7e6O8g5WO/s2524/sunflower%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2063" data-original-width="2524" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnNC7SBgp--W5IAsCAAYWhaVIFoQKaEikAH4oBdWMYqLU6LttfFtsjAede3YcYbGKhbnbeRsDUMHNP12QDom_2Hn64Uh1d_1jha54NHK6VCes-OkbHjio50RkmcRehy5FJPrY0EfXWt5sGplDVyVsMiX7EvFLDlteFrs0KgunZF79kvUW_LFS7e6O8g5WO/w640-h524/sunflower%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>It takes practice </div><div>to be like this </div><div>self seeded sunflower - </div><div>we're not all naturally</div><div>equipped with </div><div>an acceptance</div><div>of possible failure </div><div>or prepared for </div><div>the possibility </div><div>of standing alone. </div><div>Can you say though</div><div>that this wasn't worth it?</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyV3CuQQEA0LMe6MI8rqFaONX-f-pPK1Y_dQhj6U_2WPj5GUN3LeK_7Tgxf5ulzYCbU5k8uXQDoehZnkCnm1b_W6x-_31XnzDLWv0-XF-5foTOS6ug9K_irRnA1ODp8W2D6T5_o3c1IN5CBugJsYVCnfmjaEtyUvAxy5e_BaVp_BFQFsxneZlCflfGHG0s/s3445/sunflower%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3445" data-original-width="1776" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyV3CuQQEA0LMe6MI8rqFaONX-f-pPK1Y_dQhj6U_2WPj5GUN3LeK_7Tgxf5ulzYCbU5k8uXQDoehZnkCnm1b_W6x-_31XnzDLWv0-XF-5foTOS6ug9K_irRnA1ODp8W2D6T5_o3c1IN5CBugJsYVCnfmjaEtyUvAxy5e_BaVp_BFQFsxneZlCflfGHG0s/w330-h640/sunflower%201.jpg" width="330" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-85372818140307786782023-08-29T12:48:00.001+01:002023-08-29T13:16:57.403+01:00The Sealey Challenge - Simon Armitage<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIneuUxugCIifJkXwAq2OoSq59Q28At5TIXDfz19B97rursGK8ZZKp44-pfIPc8vgv1qZ8sgT3oeFnzYuJwDZmEPlJ1fQJkmcfbqJy1CthqeqZqVf5dfF8iKOzH1nyOYJhqNZpt5SBpdHzx5WDy3-XHuWp2w-3MJA4kCwaik9n7lBgyfwGq7Y-K6_Ii-of/s2000/29%20-%20Armitage%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1097" data-original-width="2000" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIneuUxugCIifJkXwAq2OoSq59Q28At5TIXDfz19B97rursGK8ZZKp44-pfIPc8vgv1qZ8sgT3oeFnzYuJwDZmEPlJ1fQJkmcfbqJy1CthqeqZqVf5dfF8iKOzH1nyOYJhqNZpt5SBpdHzx5WDy3-XHuWp2w-3MJA4kCwaik9n7lBgyfwGq7Y-K6_Ii-of/w640-h352/29%20-%20Armitage%20cover.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">I had to double check myself re an idea I had about Simon
Armitage’s <i>Book of Matches</i> (Faber & Faber 1993). So I Googled, and
yes, I had remembered it correctly. The 30 fourteen-line poems/sonnets in the
first section are each, supposedly, meant to be read in the time it takes for a
match to burn. I guess the clue is in the opening stanza of the first poem:</p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i>“My party piece:<br /></i><i>I strike, then from the moment when the matchstick<br /></i><i>conjures up its light, to when the brightness moves<br /></i><i>beyond its means, and dies, I say the story<br /></i><i>of my life —”</i></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Well, you just have to, don’t you?! My first match burnt
out after a few lines and I realised the draft from my writing room door that
opens onto the garden was to blame. My second attempt, different poem, had a
second or two to spare. My third one had me squealing and blowing it out as the
flame licked at my fingertips a couple of lines before the end.</p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">But gimmicks apart, I like the poems in this collection.
I like Armitage’s command of form and language, of rhythm and rhyme, and how
none of those ever dominate the poems, only contribute to their music. What he
has to say always transcends the engineering work. I feel he understands that
the audience matters. He’s a poet that cares about his readers. The work can be
both playful and serious. Serious but not solemn.<br /><br />And if I hadn’t liked the collection of my own accord, I
would have made myself like it after reading about poet Ruth Padel’s
unfavourable review in which she said that praise for the book had come from
mainly non-poets. Because that’s brownie points for me. The mainstream poetry
world can be, in my experience, unpleasantly incestuous, with poets so often
writing for and reading to other poets. To reach a non-poet audience seems like
an admirable achievement.</p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I lost track of<a href="https://www.simonarmitage.com/poet-laureate-poems/#" target="_blank"> his work as Poet Laureate</a>, maybe because
his appointment in 2019 was so quickly followed by the Covid years and
subsequent life events that took my full attention. But I want to read more of
him now. Especially some of the poems mentioned in his Wiki bio: poems about
the 1969 moon landing, those commissioned by the Institute of Cancer Research
and the Royal Astronomical Society, about mental health, the Antarctic, the
100th anniversary of the burial of the Unknown Warrior, lives lost to Covid, in
celebration of national parks and open spaces, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
So many. So diverse. </p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWyzS5VNpu8Imv19L4AnhLoYzZNkgq80rSgGLrKho8mKJ6U41PZIwi2-O2gTBeVKVSWGoKDv0KkeIq02THoxoea22dorflVFdA4J5acajT8pbgLHbyJCZpgjkp1p7JlCw6MUudb_p_yjIqoOR3bfId5RuTo6OWGDkhLfUweJGS_arjhSTKKZ6-O2NgCJpH/s923/29%20-%20Armitage%20flint.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="865" data-original-width="923" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWyzS5VNpu8Imv19L4AnhLoYzZNkgq80rSgGLrKho8mKJ6U41PZIwi2-O2gTBeVKVSWGoKDv0KkeIq02THoxoea22dorflVFdA4J5acajT8pbgLHbyJCZpgjkp1p7JlCw6MUudb_p_yjIqoOR3bfId5RuTo6OWGDkhLfUweJGS_arjhSTKKZ6-O2NgCJpH/s320/29%20-%20Armitage%20flint.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I went running with my ladies’ running group yesterday
morning and as we crossed a field at the foot of the North Downs I picked up a
piece of flint, one of thousands that were scattered across the fields mixed in
with the sandy clay.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">So I’ve picked Armitage’s poem, ‘On the Trail of the Old
Ways’ to share with you, as he mentions flint, and because I had such a strong
feeling of gratitude for the landscape yesterday, how lucky I was to be able to
run through it, and partly along The Pilgrim’s Way. A literal trail of the old
ways. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p>(I’ve also added a ‘Matchstick’ poem for you to have fun
with fire, if you want to <span face=""Segoe UI Emoji", sans-serif">🔥</span>)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgab5QctABVGgHgM8guFXQA6dBghu93tEM75p630B1dWgwvK_WxDoKTYJNtslhMSdTXcb3wvgJ64SaPgJ_4ZtYPTHv0-fYlNGzg3itv7oq8fD2NHCawJbfboyz6Lkt_RP7OFLNffA6V8M6DfC6Q5Ihns9IyV7592fUtgn3outYcFNHFoiWhe4AFfd-6D7bo/s3636/29%20-%20Armitage.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3636" data-original-width="2869" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgab5QctABVGgHgM8guFXQA6dBghu93tEM75p630B1dWgwvK_WxDoKTYJNtslhMSdTXcb3wvgJ64SaPgJ_4ZtYPTHv0-fYlNGzg3itv7oq8fD2NHCawJbfboyz6Lkt_RP7OFLNffA6V8M6DfC6Q5Ihns9IyV7592fUtgn3outYcFNHFoiWhe4AFfd-6D7bo/w504-h640/29%20-%20Armitage.jpg" width="504" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXR69DEYnT4s2nNmoLUM7nQTKWRW55KMk2PJwrMYlBAoAKROSOOib3fG2FipTxxlUbcTZGOlN6yEHgjLN97Z-rYV3RFJTBQSb3IphHpJ3n80A65Vvc70k78mnsGlTtiKgA1LiUWE0qA7V_QcjZwjVN0Ui9rQnWiM0pa6WL2YBz4wxXCLJY7wapiPQArsW/s1717/29%20-%20Armitage%203.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1717" data-original-width="1244" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXR69DEYnT4s2nNmoLUM7nQTKWRW55KMk2PJwrMYlBAoAKROSOOib3fG2FipTxxlUbcTZGOlN6yEHgjLN97Z-rYV3RFJTBQSb3IphHpJ3n80A65Vvc70k78mnsGlTtiKgA1LiUWE0qA7V_QcjZwjVN0Ui9rQnWiM0pa6WL2YBz4wxXCLJY7wapiPQArsW/w464-h640/29%20-%20Armitage%203.jpg" width="464" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><br /></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-88031541256087369542023-08-27T15:19:00.002+01:002023-08-29T12:48:54.956+01:00The Sealey Challenge - Matt Morden<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipSuibM3nAggcU-qEopExX21KbVyKeWyuNSgEri5aa4OcTdsJ_suj6SF2JqjySITkIIOWrgrCX5XVoRJjBjoSlWxkp42YeBg7_ftqhp1AsZKQXf9tyJjqMnOoQSNBflQ1tUhnBu37blTdDy5cT5osT3hMqXVDJyx7HE6c7-HvCmSJd0av8jFhsZI_ik4co/s1711/27%20-%20Morden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1432" data-original-width="1711" height="536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipSuibM3nAggcU-qEopExX21KbVyKeWyuNSgEri5aa4OcTdsJ_suj6SF2JqjySITkIIOWrgrCX5XVoRJjBjoSlWxkp42YeBg7_ftqhp1AsZKQXf9tyJjqMnOoQSNBflQ1tUhnBu37blTdDy5cT5osT3hMqXVDJyx7HE6c7-HvCmSJd0av8jFhsZI_ik4co/w640-h536/27%20-%20Morden.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">It’s rare to read
a poetry collection and enthuse about every one included in it. Inevitably some
poems will resonate with us more than others. But Matt Morden’s collection, <i>Stumbles
in Clover </i>(Snapshot Press 2007) has me savouring every single haiku on
every single page. I felt like that when I first bought it and feel it again today.
<br />
<br />
Nigel Jenkins, on the back cover, said, ‘They are as spare and translucent as
it’s possible to be, yet they are deeply affecting...’. ‘Spare’ could easily
suggest something that has been pared back to the detriment of content and
meaning. But Morden has such a wonderful eye for detail, and humanity observed,
that his micro poems expand beyond their physical boundaries. They are like miniature
doorways into shared emotions, felt experiences. And the natural world, where
it appears, always feels, through suggestion, like a parallel to the human one.
Enjoy these few.</p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">~</p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">gathering dusk<br />my son bowls me out<br />for the first time</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">a colleague’s sigh<br />arrives before he does<br />monday morning</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">women’s refuge<br />sunlight finds the blue<br />in painted glass</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">end of the holiday<br />a square of pale grass<br />beneath the tent</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">~</p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I mentioned in a previous post that, for me, the best poets
and poetry collections are the ones that fire me up to write too. Here are a
couple of haiku written today, thanks to Matt Morden.</p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">~<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">unsettled weather<br />she deletes her Whatsapp<br />while I am reading it</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">summer’s end<br />he buys me a chilli plant<br />called ‘Basket of Fire’</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg48pQOviKBd68-suuo83aXJRWDRxw39BSt0msGUB7P8Q1EFZu0v32Tb3vFhgoMkF3NyeC6prDDUbwUFzxdK1mmNQC-iuznrK65RvMvh311NXmLfz0yuz3MidtK1Xr52qqtJOKRXMAYXHuFXekXDejDkaXqmMBTYpLYndJYMz2kT-iEnVCmBn7yruBt8GVs/s790/27%20-%20Morden%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="790" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg48pQOviKBd68-suuo83aXJRWDRxw39BSt0msGUB7P8Q1EFZu0v32Tb3vFhgoMkF3NyeC6prDDUbwUFzxdK1mmNQC-iuznrK65RvMvh311NXmLfz0yuz3MidtK1Xr52qqtJOKRXMAYXHuFXekXDejDkaXqmMBTYpLYndJYMz2kT-iEnVCmBn7yruBt8GVs/w640-h262/27%20-%20Morden%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRIUcKYeaQ2lYULT_VWejrfQahx6B_uTyxQczptYQyPjhfdI5YyTHKCbbyeHfFQiFcBDuHMbHelMOOkvt-7sb1XWxwc8vUQ0mFXPmKBkOPHORI5STqO_DWvvttaaKFY3zn_lgEZtL-iVDtl4_ZOcUpvdwIyZHiC8WxzS_WEWqpUpo0MexhNsP76LV6Xyr_/s1257/27%20-%20Morden%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="1257" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRIUcKYeaQ2lYULT_VWejrfQahx6B_uTyxQczptYQyPjhfdI5YyTHKCbbyeHfFQiFcBDuHMbHelMOOkvt-7sb1XWxwc8vUQ0mFXPmKBkOPHORI5STqO_DWvvttaaKFY3zn_lgEZtL-iVDtl4_ZOcUpvdwIyZHiC8WxzS_WEWqpUpo0MexhNsP76LV6Xyr_/w640-h508/27%20-%20Morden%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-16845757103377739312023-08-20T17:56:00.002+01:002023-08-29T12:49:17.193+01:00The Sealey Challenge - Linda Pastan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_vhYbSFRWpfAz72tBjwwV1k5vmCuJz2jV5sS1sGNO7q6zGkrZIRvsbjPwHrzldD22NmvEjLXpW31UWqt0vc1JE9I0BwayrBXeWqE0PjV4AL2lEpiJuFYG4iKf9MePlQmutfV_iXNO7pqalzwOQc--_k0gYucivP-AttsXNKLCB2z9rEBpq0SsI_vPn_a/s1645/20%20-%20Pastan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1352" data-original-width="1645" height="526" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_vhYbSFRWpfAz72tBjwwV1k5vmCuJz2jV5sS1sGNO7q6zGkrZIRvsbjPwHrzldD22NmvEjLXpW31UWqt0vc1JE9I0BwayrBXeWqE0PjV4AL2lEpiJuFYG4iKf9MePlQmutfV_iXNO7pqalzwOQc--_k0gYucivP-AttsXNKLCB2z9rEBpq0SsI_vPn_a/w640-h526/20%20-%20Pastan.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="text-align: justify;">I only bought Linda Pastan’s collection,</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="text-align: justify;">The Last Uncle </i><span style="text-align: justify;">(WW Norton & Co 2002),</span><i style="text-align: justify;"> </i><span style="text-align: justify;">a few months ago. I bought it after reading the title poem on a poetry website. It rang so true as I lost my last two uncles at the end of 2022 and the beginning of this year and one of my cousins had said, ‘We’re the older generation now.’ I wrote about it on</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="http://www.lynnerees.com/2023/06/reflection-on-being-next-in-line-to-die.html" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">here.</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Reading through the collection today it’s another poem (‘The Vanity of Names’) that reaches me. It’s about a house staying ‘fixed in its landscape./ Rooms will be swept clean/ of all its memories. Doors will close./ Even the animal graves out back/ will forget who planted the bones/ …’ I am selling the house I was born in, two years after my parents died. In those two years I have spoken to them there and watched grief change shape. I felt less of their absence and more of their eternal presence. I came to be comforted by the home they lived in from the moment it was built in April 1957 until March 2021. But it is still hard letting it go. And that’s going to happen in the next few weeks: my last visit, the last time I open the front door. The last time I step into the room I was born in. The last time I close the door and turn the key. Before handing it to a stranger.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal">Pastan understands that her house ‘will enter/ the dreams of other people’ but ‘to acquiesce/ is never easy. It is to love the unwritten future/ almost as well as the fading past./ It is to relinquish the vanity of names/ which are already disappearing/ with every cleansing rain …’ Yes. A leap of faith into an unwritten future. And, ‘the cleansing rain’. I can work with those. </p></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-84599583680731475502023-08-16T12:37:00.001+01:002023-08-29T12:49:32.382+01:00The Sealey Challenge - Nigel Jenkins<p> </p><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTDUIA2oNktQSc82kkSSf0k4nQDELHk2jfgl_etPyC1ip3_bUS6VnRZRmzzr-Gmko8xkJje2N82hLbBP7pdDvSJU0DTRsGMDU2ikqHtqHi9mL-w72gRU-RNUzpivpXZrnv_L1qIWCdtz31Bd4a_xnhWYZtXJeSYIx7mmOQhur9lkuZrMFgVG1fVnUSyLN1/s1814/16%20-%20Nigel%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1188" data-original-width="1814" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTDUIA2oNktQSc82kkSSf0k4nQDELHk2jfgl_etPyC1ip3_bUS6VnRZRmzzr-Gmko8xkJje2N82hLbBP7pdDvSJU0DTRsGMDU2ikqHtqHi9mL-w72gRU-RNUzpivpXZrnv_L1qIWCdtz31Bd4a_xnhWYZtXJeSYIx7mmOQhur9lkuZrMFgVG1fVnUSyLN1/w640-h420/16%20-%20Nigel%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNoSpacing">I only knew him for a little over six years but he changed the direction of my life.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">After I had some haiku and haibun published in ‘Planet Magazine’ in 2007, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Jenkins" target="_blank">Nigel Jenkins</a> invited me to the launch of his haiku writing collection, <i>O for a gun</i> (Planet) that summer in Aberystwyth. I moved back to France in the Spring of 2008 but we kept in touch and he subsequently invited me to edit <i>another country, haiku poetry from Wales</i> (Gomer Press 2011) with him and Ken Jones. </p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">I travelled home from France for the launch of that collection in 2011. I remember walking through Swansea Marina with Nigel and him asking me whether I’d ever thought of writing a ‘Real' Port Talbot. Nigel was the author of <i>Real Swansea</i> I & II and was working on <i>Real Gower</i>, for Seren Books. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">‘Oh, I don’t think I could,’ I said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">I didn’t feel as if I had the ability to write prose at length. And the ‘Real’ books were so eclectic too, a collage of historical research, journalism, memoir, sometimes poetry, and photography. And eclectic was exactly what Nigel was: essayist, journalist, creative non-fiction writer, editor, broadcaster, poet, playwright, lecturer.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">‘You could,’ he said.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">And I decided to believe him. And I did. And he came to the launch of <i>Real Port Talbot</i> at Taibach Rugby Club in November 2013. I didn’t see him again. He died in January 2014 from pancreatic cancer.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">I’d written to him after his diagnosis in December:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i>I am writing from the top of my head because what is in my heart almost weighs too heavily to put down on paper. I want you to stay around for a long time. For Margot and your daughters and close friends. And selfishly for me too. When you like people, and they feel that warmth, it makes a difference to their lives, Nigel. Maybe because they know – I know – that you do not tolerate navel-gazers and clever dicks and pomposity! So we feel saved!</i></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">I still miss him. And continually feel grateful for the gift of his words. For his openness and generosity. For the elegiac and the comical, and everything in between.</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"> </p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">I open the window —<br />dogs barking in the nights<br />of childhood</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div style="text-align: right;">no one about yet</div><div style="text-align: right;">except me and a rat —</div><div style="text-align: right;">who knows I’m trouble</div><p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">the seal’s head and mine<br />bobbing face to face<br />on the tide</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div style="text-align: right;">no rain all June —</div><div style="text-align: right;">the newspaper so much</div><div style="text-align: right;">noisier to turn</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixtOO2KcjBldrTp02SQcoImL1Qw1yJ1wC_HSL8R-_MFSnsVprARzKwvpcSIUmLIaYysTn9gqHy5ijVJ0YMHMTv6isUsOl3Kw6dq_TyJt-iF9yvBYhGr1OijQXLe2mOgPk4frjqXCRTLAph8yZpHuhDKUMx5rMw0RmAQWBW80cFniWLuTvYFrQ17xRfY-sk/s1000/nigel%202.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixtOO2KcjBldrTp02SQcoImL1Qw1yJ1wC_HSL8R-_MFSnsVprARzKwvpcSIUmLIaYysTn9gqHy5ijVJ0YMHMTv6isUsOl3Kw6dq_TyJt-iF9yvBYhGr1OijQXLe2mOgPk4frjqXCRTLAph8yZpHuhDKUMx5rMw0RmAQWBW80cFniWLuTvYFrQ17xRfY-sk/w480-h640/nigel%202.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Nigel, at Tre'r Caeri, Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales 2012</div><p></p></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-22059921115081475292023-08-11T17:38:00.002+01:002023-08-29T12:49:55.258+01:00The Sealey Challenge - Carolyn Forche<p>(All my daily posts from The Sealey Challenge 2023 can be viewed via the link on my home page.)</p><p><b><i>The Country Between Us</i>, Carolyn Forché
(Jonathan Cape 1983</b>)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD20uez0hWIWStQJ-0Tj9nY5q_RVt63rz1LuPF_1064xNWvVt8F7yNvXDhqTkardzVkT9XMEsth6pyH_7BnDQNw4_32GNu5B4vfKmef9hmVWi1wshWV1TTSR09tFPcWJwtybvf2sqjVoERmUFhRddQS_L02WOughiPP56FJm9Ur1b61w3NcskzUjfk4R0A/s1658/11%20-%20Forche.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1148" data-original-width="1658" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD20uez0hWIWStQJ-0Tj9nY5q_RVt63rz1LuPF_1064xNWvVt8F7yNvXDhqTkardzVkT9XMEsth6pyH_7BnDQNw4_32GNu5B4vfKmef9hmVWi1wshWV1TTSR09tFPcWJwtybvf2sqjVoERmUFhRddQS_L02WOughiPP56FJm9Ur1b61w3NcskzUjfk4R0A/w640-h444/11%20-%20Forche.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>I have only two references for the country of El Salvador. One
is the Oliver Stone movie, <i>Salvador</i>, from 1986 starring James Woods,
which was strongly critical of the US-supported military dictatorship. It is
harrowing in parts, as the truth can be. The second reference is Carolyn Forché’s
poem, ‘The Colonel’, written after visiting El Salvador as a human rights
activist in the late 1970s. It’s a poem you should read. It’s a poem you shouldn’t
read. If you do it’s a poem you’ll never forget. If you do, then also read her
own account of writing the poem – links to both at the end.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In his poem, ‘In Memory of WB Yeats’, WH Auden famously said,
‘Poetry makes nothing happen’. But then he went on to say, ‘…it survives/in the
valley of its making… it survives,/ A way of happening, a mouth.’ He’s not
saying that poetry is ineffective only that it doesn’t <b>directly</b>
influence things. It survives, its voice is preserved, it remembers; that’s
where its power lies. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Because if poetry was really ineffectual, poets would not be
arrested and persecuted by regimes. An article in <i>The Guardian </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">from a couple of years ago sheds both an
historical and contemporary light on the subject, link at end.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I will not say that the rights and liberties we experience
in this country are perfect. But I will say we are more blessed than others. And
perhaps that’s a reason for speaking out, against injustice, against prejudice,
against wrong-doing, when we perceive them. Because we can. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Movie: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_(film)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_(film)</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Poem: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49862/the-colonel">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49862/the-colonel</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Forch<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>’s account: <a href="https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/node/54434">https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/node/54434</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">‘The Guardian’, Flogged, imprisoned, murdered: today, being
a poet is a dangerous job: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/05/flogged-imprisoned-murdered-today-being-a-poet-is-a-dangerous-job">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/05/flogged-imprisoned-murdered-today-being-a-poet-is-a-dangerous-job</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-66565863602070795542023-08-08T17:23:00.006+01:002023-08-29T12:50:10.857+01:00The Sealey Challenge - Douglas Dunn<p>(My daily posts for The Sealey Challenge 2023 can be find via the link on my home page.)</p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>7th August</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>Elegies</i>, Douglas Dunn (Faber 1985)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Apart from a Welsh poem I memorised, while at Sandfields Comprehensive School for a recitation competition at the local Urdd (<i>Mae Abertawe yn yr haul/ Yn cysgu’n dawel ger y lli./ Traeth o aur o gylch ei thread/ A Browyr wrth ei hystlys hi</i>... - I came second), the only other poem I’ve memorised, successfully in its entirety, is Douglas Dunn’s, ‘The Kaleidsoscope’.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">It was several years ago when I was running a couple of performance workshops at Simon Langton Grammar School, Canterbury with some of the 5th and 6th formers who were entering <a href="https://poetrybyheart.org.uk/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #f4ff81; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Poetry by Heart,</a> an annual national poetry speaking competition. And there was no way I could stand in front of a group of young people offering advice on memorising and recitation if I couldn’t do it myself! Dunn’s poem is a sonnet, so only fourteen lines long and with a regular rhyme scheme and memorable imagery, which was a doddle to imprint onto my memory in comparison to some of the poems to choose from on the PBH list.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">When I picked up the book again today, I couldn’t quite get through it without glancing at the page in a couple of places. But the overall shape of it was still there, hanging like a comfortable, old winter coat in the attic of my mind.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Dunn wrote <i>Elegies </i>after the death of his wife in 1981. I mentioned in my last post about most poetry being written in response to sadness, loss and despair. But it’s not only written by practicing poets; people who may never have read or written poetry in their life find themselves turning to it when they are grieving. It’s as if poetry, words shaped on a page, offers a receptacle for that overpowering sense of grief. For its expression, translation and communication, to self and others.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I’ve written over 20 poems about Mam and Dad in the last two and a half years and the closing line of the last poem in Elegies, ‘Leaving Dundee’, reminded my of a line in one of mine. ‘My love, say you’ll come with me,’ writes Dunn as he plans to move back home after spending time in Dundee after his wife’s death. We want our memories with us. ‘Wherever you are, there I am,’ I wrote. ‘Wherever I am, there you are.’ When I say the words out loud they ring with truth and comfort. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieFzVtckgSLMTymuyiXcV0tCtuTS_ndo87NxMwQ8UySGH875LBHj8Z05x1hzsFYPe1XbL60RzEcjDgPj9fKdKiDyk8i1wKgvcr5txTn2MMjO5eNIwGVEki4oErM3NiJ6CXmVlTRDsP9czKna1-jJJAmr5vvN77O18icezM85swTdkQZ3wdwdNTKNZIqiLG/s3676/7%20-%20Dunn.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #f4ff81; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2142" data-original-width="3676" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieFzVtckgSLMTymuyiXcV0tCtuTS_ndo87NxMwQ8UySGH875LBHj8Z05x1hzsFYPe1XbL60RzEcjDgPj9fKdKiDyk8i1wKgvcr5txTn2MMjO5eNIwGVEki4oErM3NiJ6CXmVlTRDsP9czKna1-jJJAmr5vvN77O18icezM85swTdkQZ3wdwdNTKNZIqiLG/w640-h372/7%20-%20Dunn.jpg" style="border: 0px; height: inherit; max-width: 100%;" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br style="background-color: #263238; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;" /></p></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-43775883834719302512023-07-14T15:26:00.003+01:002023-07-15T14:43:18.866+01:00Poem ~ Harvest<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEqyzK8hfbvDQwDw6F3Eb7Pi0FHCyd6mzZp2Zp5JU4xQAVwiOAMCD16oJMPKjYIi3Y6jrTzN0BSSZwDvVwfoDmVjC9sBQSXgldsIsgzHHiLp9mrg1GW9858oQoOruE4CfV8ea5q1fVxDyW9mhehJopNtxIXPdDriTb7VeXw5kqSPdLaYgKa7Xky9XjVeGM/s3746/crops.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2209" data-original-width="3746" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEqyzK8hfbvDQwDw6F3Eb7Pi0FHCyd6mzZp2Zp5JU4xQAVwiOAMCD16oJMPKjYIi3Y6jrTzN0BSSZwDvVwfoDmVjC9sBQSXgldsIsgzHHiLp9mrg1GW9858oQoOruE4CfV8ea5q1fVxDyW9mhehJopNtxIXPdDriTb7VeXw5kqSPdLaYgKa7Xky9XjVeGM/w640-h378/crops.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">HARVEST</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">When I pick the beetroot, I think of my Dad.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">When I pick the green beans, I think of my Dad.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I will think of my Mam when I cook them,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">the conversation we would have had about </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">how long I'd have to sauté the chopped stems </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">of the beet leaves, before adding the leaves, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">how much garlic to add, and how the beans </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">might not need any salt. So tender. So fresh.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is what binds me to them still, the harvest</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">of what I have sown and nurtured, the earth</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">under my nails, beneath my knees. This morning,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">rain on the back of my neck, softer than tears,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">while I parted leaf from leaf to find what the world</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">without them keeps on giving back to me. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">On the shelf above the sink, the wild poppy</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I picked a day ago has shed its petals. Oh, beauty. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfH4kwGzmMldw3QzGLKaDP1DoPxcCno9GBqyo7O3w4TN9VdHIxEpMgW_kZOwU0IiEMnN8jEWqNCQvGBy0V8aSUK2tmxpdr5pLHbCtqDkzsWg57b3ajXw4MS334scX0u0VwTuRRrxyKDoHS5wHttHg6XVy8TU1FFxZclH4fjzOl5bKtxybImAR0HsVZpz3j/s3036/beetroot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2825" data-original-width="3036" height="596" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfH4kwGzmMldw3QzGLKaDP1DoPxcCno9GBqyo7O3w4TN9VdHIxEpMgW_kZOwU0IiEMnN8jEWqNCQvGBy0V8aSUK2tmxpdr5pLHbCtqDkzsWg57b3ajXw4MS334scX0u0VwTuRRrxyKDoHS5wHttHg6XVy8TU1FFxZclH4fjzOl5bKtxybImAR0HsVZpz3j/w640-h596/beetroot.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWWFu024qBgwkwCJ--tN7mzLnLmLTF0gZyGDtH54rtR0SdkJKlyW1ZASF0vbv4-HFqoIzprQ0iXkLlVsf9IT0wu8DM3xCr04fMa2ALaBKWtHEwKVfpQtOrokg6Y6VQaILgwlMnoKMYrODkzEHykp1JQl3p8qT_sYh20tnnBNxLoXnYZRk4f5dELsZlWun/s4000/green%20beans.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2007" data-original-width="4000" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWWFu024qBgwkwCJ--tN7mzLnLmLTF0gZyGDtH54rtR0SdkJKlyW1ZASF0vbv4-HFqoIzprQ0iXkLlVsf9IT0wu8DM3xCr04fMa2ALaBKWtHEwKVfpQtOrokg6Y6VQaILgwlMnoKMYrODkzEHykp1JQl3p8qT_sYh20tnnBNxLoXnYZRk4f5dELsZlWun/w640-h322/green%20beans.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJcisntLRw0xHQWvcSNBIqVpFUz25bu6b8YZiaIA9_aYCOBoORcM1Qz3lp3Xq-wgX6q_GC7bzlhuXKiXE5GLTWhcyqUWxG1g0Y8QQ689OZLjYbpUtk9xEwGPbfz5FhiWAFgzIW2V3omJ_j5j_MMGU1INOj5sLuClOFNG-D-NI8E5qu47PqulA0wAJG510/s3704/fallen%20poppy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3704" data-original-width="2401" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJcisntLRw0xHQWvcSNBIqVpFUz25bu6b8YZiaIA9_aYCOBoORcM1Qz3lp3Xq-wgX6q_GC7bzlhuXKiXE5GLTWhcyqUWxG1g0Y8QQ689OZLjYbpUtk9xEwGPbfz5FhiWAFgzIW2V3omJ_j5j_MMGU1INOj5sLuClOFNG-D-NI8E5qu47PqulA0wAJG510/w414-h640/fallen%20poppy.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-1098821132717027792023-06-28T11:08:00.003+01:002023-07-18T13:45:13.015+01:00Poem ~ from my ongoing run/write series<div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>run/write</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(<i>words constructed and remembered while running)</i></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidyEqzJfTcjC-I43aFUPRjkAhYowEH8_qhSoYFeggyEbgfEHnbwaFKhQnCnQst16DTRyh_xP6Ghid5Je19xxnKCGTo_iCxQ7QzwJFQ-xrjbhpOL_w1emLsYDUn3HkG7_eliHuKd6LPQGsq4bpEiUa1QXzti1iZGwLhUDHv5USBh30wjaZvdA0qf01f5yh_/s2387/baby%20elephant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1751" data-original-width="2387" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidyEqzJfTcjC-I43aFUPRjkAhYowEH8_qhSoYFeggyEbgfEHnbwaFKhQnCnQst16DTRyh_xP6Ghid5Je19xxnKCGTo_iCxQ7QzwJFQ-xrjbhpOL_w1emLsYDUn3HkG7_eliHuKd6LPQGsq4bpEiUa1QXzti1iZGwLhUDHv5USBh30wjaZvdA0qf01f5yh_/w640-h470/baby%20elephant.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"> there is nothing quite like meeting
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> a baby elephant in the woods even if
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> from the back he turns out to be </span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> a shattered tree stump - what matters
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is the moment you first see him when
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> something like magic happens in you</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> the transformation of ordinary into
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> extraordinary, the sudden lifting of
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> your heart, and the rest of your run </span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is filled with gifts: poppies, barley,
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> oh, look, the promise of blackberries
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and paths yet to be taken</span></p></span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_rqT-hUZ-sPBn-gf3XGQRlnUfOp_87d-jrywQmVjXF78QL4aduFSOwPHVF0XV4bIirykVKDCFrNICNbLnziEoPuqNSQ0gMWivyhSnIgOIuQNGdiysu8Jtq9K4JK-btyyZg-azfYyY4ARx0qUS3Kz9mB86QtPApG3oe8_cQa-JEodK00kr5T2mBMLbSx8l/s1591/baby%20elephant%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1591" data-original-width="1526" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_rqT-hUZ-sPBn-gf3XGQRlnUfOp_87d-jrywQmVjXF78QL4aduFSOwPHVF0XV4bIirykVKDCFrNICNbLnziEoPuqNSQ0gMWivyhSnIgOIuQNGdiysu8Jtq9K4JK-btyyZg-azfYyY4ARx0qUS3Kz9mB86QtPApG3oe8_cQa-JEodK00kr5T2mBMLbSx8l/w614-h640/baby%20elephant%201.jpg" width="614" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipolCLBSU5DrB7MPrXxFsN8MdY2PQcCCE4y82FJhyt6cNlM9ky1nnDuZl_uq4dmTJRnm097Uyjb5w1k0wd2Xlqx7rW7cbVdKc2DEYt6rA0qwYfT5z5i8moRk2IG05-hFWc1k_EVP4TFVWFSPsC9GAroICKHN-s876ZYuffreOpsSqrlQ-APRO8YKmkJRSJ/s3882/poppies%20barley.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1774" data-original-width="3882" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipolCLBSU5DrB7MPrXxFsN8MdY2PQcCCE4y82FJhyt6cNlM9ky1nnDuZl_uq4dmTJRnm097Uyjb5w1k0wd2Xlqx7rW7cbVdKc2DEYt6rA0qwYfT5z5i8moRk2IG05-hFWc1k_EVP4TFVWFSPsC9GAroICKHN-s876ZYuffreOpsSqrlQ-APRO8YKmkJRSJ/w640-h292/poppies%20barley.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAtvjPZolfz03usgdQRIqGQWoQnm8w0HVdSQ90BNk9Yx1fkrwo2UBzxo2E08L5EalV2w3kBmLGp7PPdM12eeNMx1-ssxyoG1wXJ8Y9nbrB7KMKd-z4AO4ePEnlagUj0-FKyHtmFXo1JADazlIBiAOozyw2sxrVt54FfZJe2DsgaX7mbfE5SAUgBLPUgPR/s2000/barley.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="2000" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAtvjPZolfz03usgdQRIqGQWoQnm8w0HVdSQ90BNk9Yx1fkrwo2UBzxo2E08L5EalV2w3kBmLGp7PPdM12eeNMx1-ssxyoG1wXJ8Y9nbrB7KMKd-z4AO4ePEnlagUj0-FKyHtmFXo1JADazlIBiAOozyw2sxrVt54FfZJe2DsgaX7mbfE5SAUgBLPUgPR/w640-h390/barley.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuQ3QwowqYuUukhOAV4oOJArboSKswgFBHDyLxa0iDv86gCowA1uwUOOJMDP1AGGmCAFH4XmXo0RImrM8SmmcQKN-uh-6ID0q_k4yDUIvTGlXTjNj5YiUKAg9m_HXDZlHcGwP3FGxv85eCscq2ANVK5LxUYlPhlWY6uHSe6Qkt5JVklOQS4sOWCK7I0WRZ/s2180/beginning%20of%20blackberries.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2086" data-original-width="2180" height="612" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuQ3QwowqYuUukhOAV4oOJArboSKswgFBHDyLxa0iDv86gCowA1uwUOOJMDP1AGGmCAFH4XmXo0RImrM8SmmcQKN-uh-6ID0q_k4yDUIvTGlXTjNj5YiUKAg9m_HXDZlHcGwP3FGxv85eCscq2ANVK5LxUYlPhlWY6uHSe6Qkt5JVklOQS4sOWCK7I0WRZ/w640-h612/beginning%20of%20blackberries.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQUOZrrav1dNkfCVG6jydCLsSOqVqXQqz3mP5_jiMEkGubfN28WY8_77q1F1ZF-ah8GUu_yCdaELv4fZveN97qdcs0owWWTp7EagCDWotEeo4jA_EPU611UzhvD06bN9MXI_rysvqOl0y0chogHHrmvSW2xxN0Fk5pEUsYBFs6dRC-3rrUUwA32A8jJv6O/s1207/Capture.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1207" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQUOZrrav1dNkfCVG6jydCLsSOqVqXQqz3mP5_jiMEkGubfN28WY8_77q1F1ZF-ah8GUu_yCdaELv4fZveN97qdcs0owWWTp7EagCDWotEeo4jA_EPU611UzhvD06bN9MXI_rysvqOl0y0chogHHrmvSW2xxN0Fk5pEUsYBFs6dRC-3rrUUwA32A8jJv6O/w640-h398/Capture.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
</span></div></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-76428422695350163022023-06-13T13:29:00.001+01:002023-06-13T13:29:53.723+01:00Poem ~ Footbridge<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHEL3jQWCT0WVwOq0MWrivS7krdQ6y0AY_TZQrrnE4S95sFUTVcwhijl9P9TU1DFkxbJ2ndS3stw5pgX06OeZh_dZ6Vo2X1ctH1zDUCBTlYlAaxi374ZNAw6c8yDV28NdG_0KrTCB_hJ_waMD329B8jVe6p8vmI07f2m3XOHYDpDArAym73uJGSvimQ/s2306/ryarsh%20bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1578" data-original-width="2306" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHEL3jQWCT0WVwOq0MWrivS7krdQ6y0AY_TZQrrnE4S95sFUTVcwhijl9P9TU1DFkxbJ2ndS3stw5pgX06OeZh_dZ6Vo2X1ctH1zDUCBTlYlAaxi374ZNAw6c8yDV28NdG_0KrTCB_hJ_waMD329B8jVe6p8vmI07f2m3XOHYDpDArAym73uJGSvimQ/w640-h438/ryarsh%20bridge.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Footbridge</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Each time I run here I stop to love it </div><div>a little more, its broken concrete walkway </div><div><br /></div><div>and crooked handrails straddling </div><div>the Leybourne Stream that, even in winter, </div><div><br /></div><div>is never more than a brusque current </div><div>and today is as calm as the pond </div><div><br /></div><div>it once fed, a century ago, at a corn mill </div><div>half a mile from here. It reminds me </div><div><br /></div><div>there will always be streams and rivers </div><div>to cross, some times tentatively </div><div><br /></div><div>through cold and unforgiving water, </div><div>our bare feet trying to find purchase </div><div><br /></div><div>on the bed, negotiating tree roots and silt. </div><div>But most times we are like heroes, our journey </div><div><br /></div><div>uninterrupted, confidently striding </div><div>the span of wood and stone between banks. </div><div><br /></div><div>One day I will take off my shoes </div><div>and wade through, remind myself to be grateful. </div><div><br /></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-23636772146886215182023-05-02T15:20:00.000+01:002023-06-13T15:21:58.584+01:00Reflection ~ On being the next in line to die<div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Last Uncle</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br />The last uncle is pushing off<br />in his funeral skiff (the usual<br />black limo) having locked<br />the doors behind him<br />on a whole generation.<br /><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And look, we are the elders now<br />with our torn scraps<br />of history, alone<br />on the mapless shore<br />of this raw new century.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Linda Pastan</i><br /><br />From her collection, <i>The Last Uncle, </i>W. W. Norton & Company (2003)</div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">My last two uncles died a couple of months apart, at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. At one of their funerals a cousin expressed the same idea that Linda Pastan so eloquently describes in the second stanza of her poem: we are the older generation now. </p><p style="text-align: left;">The idea of being next in line 'to die' does not bother me. I am deeply grateful for all of my own 'torn scraps of history' and I do not feel alone on any shore. I don't know what lies ahead and I have no need to imagine what it might be. Not beleiving in any kind of afterlife, or second chance, is a comfort rather than the source of any fear. Having survived to be a part of the older generation feels like a gift, not a burden, or riven with loss. </p><p style="text-align: left;">While we were waiting outside the chapel of rest for Uncle Michael's coffin to be taken inside I heard the ubiquitous, unintelligible call of the rag and bone man along the main road beyond the cemetery's gates. The juxtaposition was both startling and somewhat reassuring. Is there always some use for what is thrown away or discarded, what is unwanted, abandoned? Even our bones and flesh, once our consciousness has departed?</p><p style="text-align: left;">It's not something I shared with my cousins. I understand that hymns and prayers are what a lot of people need at funerals rather than any practical rationalisations. <br /><br />At the wakes, at both funerals, we took a photo of 'all the cousins'. Two different sets from my mother's and father's sides of the family. It was as if all of us, maybe unconsciously, wanted a record of who we were now. The grown-ups. The elders of the tribe. Let's celebrate this, the photos seem to say. And we did. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp5OIuqkTXFd7b0f6b6Pnu3DNNg9SPAfTvOtp4Lpe_zZo93Vg-BAAlHNnjovEDntIIoBMZO4dCzF5KFEpjxPAGLavcU-xPhrhB9N5DP4VjytURGkhGOHe3VeZAMQdzooihL5SyeCRgT2c5viff-tZgo4h6D17CyxinYF0CqN-3hwwQaS1nYnGsAfzKtA/s1390/IMG-20221115-WA0010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1390" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp5OIuqkTXFd7b0f6b6Pnu3DNNg9SPAfTvOtp4Lpe_zZo93Vg-BAAlHNnjovEDntIIoBMZO4dCzF5KFEpjxPAGLavcU-xPhrhB9N5DP4VjytURGkhGOHe3VeZAMQdzooihL5SyeCRgT2c5viff-tZgo4h6D17CyxinYF0CqN-3hwwQaS1nYnGsAfzKtA/w640-h290/IMG-20221115-WA0010.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-wZPXPdq925cirtU-y1zN7CX_4xb_jMo73Z8Gs5LzMM7DpDFYIBR49HUN--sAgfYqv4UbVFLUtdpWpFD8GIBZ_8deyI41WZXtkrHotgJbm0fb0QouR-hY6NgGOKOk5-UFxkDbr0-AfdE-lpXbw_laG3xTrAlR77lOfdJfqbvToQQH8EJmtnE7p8CtKg/s872/cousins%201%20for%20blog.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="872" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-wZPXPdq925cirtU-y1zN7CX_4xb_jMo73Z8Gs5LzMM7DpDFYIBR49HUN--sAgfYqv4UbVFLUtdpWpFD8GIBZ_8deyI41WZXtkrHotgJbm0fb0QouR-hY6NgGOKOk5-UFxkDbr0-AfdE-lpXbw_laG3xTrAlR77lOfdJfqbvToQQH8EJmtnE7p8CtKg/w640-h290/cousins%201%20for%20blog.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-83857384205260375752023-03-16T15:11:00.002+00:002023-07-18T13:45:58.911+01:00Haibun ~ clichés I keep living through<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>clichés I keep living through</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikEdc6HNjEmBoxF9uAlm_lceE6c5b6_cDjfbrHSye6NrwQ7trkygluJYPZhjCrpRBCy63-czutMTiu90MyHbcV9IbmT6rE5kojTP0v5czjO6Ja23s7pyFS76AgtJa0xEwEJHBBweVJwrzzPPZbDOlFyUTHoMBkoeLeXAUQLASCdkZJliRxeN9eWX1MeQ/s3143/oak%20sapling.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3143" data-original-width="1835" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikEdc6HNjEmBoxF9uAlm_lceE6c5b6_cDjfbrHSye6NrwQ7trkygluJYPZhjCrpRBCy63-czutMTiu90MyHbcV9IbmT6rE5kojTP0v5czjO6Ja23s7pyFS76AgtJa0xEwEJHBBweVJwrzzPPZbDOlFyUTHoMBkoeLeXAUQLASCdkZJliRxeN9eWX1MeQ/w234-h400/oak%20sapling.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><i>carpe diem, life is a learning curve, what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, time heals, be the change I want to see in the world</i>, the exhausting relentlessness of trying to be motivated, generous, at peace, forgiving in the presence of things happening for a reason, and lemons and fucking lemonade, because sometimes I don’t care that it’s over and I just want to cry because it happened, so it’s a good thing I can throw the latch on a small door in the corner of my mind and say hello to Robert Frost and ask him to tell me, again, in three words, what he’s learned about life: <i>it goes on</i>, he says.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">things that happen </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">when </span><span style="font-size: medium;">I least expect</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">oak saplings </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7KPui2fwuDO2U1nhMd5Iu6D_wASXRz6SoapcwXVA9abB7iJwjsuoZlEUx26Mb99VKh048yRByOrojpymcMnG4awdl_nY7g-UYh5Bocx9SDO55iYH-EgnUCf1VuXcqW4lyxiKZDi5HM81xMXX7wxU874mF6MOk7rOEPIll_Sf95Y7pv1v3Q_po2t9D6Q/s2418/oak%20saplings.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="2418" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7KPui2fwuDO2U1nhMd5Iu6D_wASXRz6SoapcwXVA9abB7iJwjsuoZlEUx26Mb99VKh048yRByOrojpymcMnG4awdl_nY7g-UYh5Bocx9SDO55iYH-EgnUCf1VuXcqW4lyxiKZDi5HM81xMXX7wxU874mF6MOk7rOEPIll_Sf95Y7pv1v3Q_po2t9D6Q/w640-h230/oak%20saplings.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /></div><br /><br /></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-69099350462028336012023-02-03T10:22:00.004+00:002023-02-04T11:39:13.891+00:00Prose poem ~ When cats curl up in your heart and fall asleep there <div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2tAnldYmM2BYomBacd28IQPuDqapOxsIY6Qd8NaIl0SbzuDrSWTsm-yQJRAJbdSgDoeRVgMx2gLXrEVyigiRLNhtB740Qj-7h8bDxt4PlACmt-2AC61ckKe058m2hifWjK_cvEuEkeCr64MEyk1X7QeI-cc1_PpTvm1tVRxNhpNEFgHB_Hi7Ge-UyWQ/s1045/chica%20lovely%20in%20sun%202.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="1045" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2tAnldYmM2BYomBacd28IQPuDqapOxsIY6Qd8NaIl0SbzuDrSWTsm-yQJRAJbdSgDoeRVgMx2gLXrEVyigiRLNhtB740Qj-7h8bDxt4PlACmt-2AC61ckKe058m2hifWjK_cvEuEkeCr64MEyk1X7QeI-cc1_PpTvm1tVRxNhpNEFgHB_Hi7Ge-UyWQ/w640-h376/chica%20lovely%20in%20sun%202.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is strange how an absence of weight makes me feel heavier rather than lighter. Her warm, black-furred body, usually pressed against my hip all night, has been replaced by emptiness, weightlessness, when I reach out for her in the dark and fall into a depth of grieving I thought had passed. Perhaps that one small grief for a cat calls out to the others that are still sheltering in my heart. And maybe all they want to do is shake out their resting muscles for a while, take a walk around my bed. Still here, they say gently, proving to me, once again, that grief is the proof of great love. But this addition of a cat's life to the parade seems, for now, almost unbearable. This will pass, I know. We owe it to ourselves, the living, as well as to the memory of the dead, to turn our faces to the light of the world, remind ourselves of the joy we have gathered, the joy there is yet to be gathered. </span></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-85743418684575936602023-01-23T15:41:00.000+00:002023-01-23T15:41:41.005+00:00Poem ~ It is so still today<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho65O4g2iyqkN38lGkO4fTQJKAAZLbOwwZNBy2j3pusMmZShA57m_Txi2s5eMWvRSYsw5Pa1vQBlCh2nffClv65uqTS5RlOwpyOVIhPsb8gf65o5oTkZSRuOmfzTRxpVYHRk1k2a5x0B7Xkdp8AemPyIl_jdgVw088M679wIolByKA4UFTAnZufHp-2w/s3246/20230123_101910.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2204" data-original-width="3246" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho65O4g2iyqkN38lGkO4fTQJKAAZLbOwwZNBy2j3pusMmZShA57m_Txi2s5eMWvRSYsw5Pa1vQBlCh2nffClv65uqTS5RlOwpyOVIhPsb8gf65o5oTkZSRuOmfzTRxpVYHRk1k2a5x0B7Xkdp8AemPyIl_jdgVw088M679wIolByKA4UFTAnZufHp-2w/w640-h434/20230123_101910.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>It is so still today</b></div><div><br /></div><div>smoke rises from an allotment bonfire</div><div>in a pillar of disbelief</div><div><br /></div><div>the motorway’s drone is a single</div><div>dull wall of sound</div><div><br /></div><div>muted birdsong reaches me</div><div>across a frozen field</div><div><br /></div><div>I am the most disruptive </div><div>element in the landscape</div><div><br /></div><div>feet slapping the ground</div><div>ragged exhalations of breath </div><div><br /></div><div>on unexpected inclines</div><div>but when I stop and listen </div><div><br /></div><div>I realise I am not </div><div>the only interruption ~</div><div><br /></div><div>a passing train, the cries</div><div>of children in the yard</div><div><br /></div><div>of a school half a mile away</div><div>and then in the next moment</div><div><br /></div><div>the peals of the school bell</div><div>calling us all to order</div><div><br /></div><div>and I am a child</div><div>in another schoolyard</div><div><br /></div><div>in another landscape</div><div>bouncing on my heels</div><div><br /></div><div>turning towards this future</div><div>I have yet to imagine. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhWeD_dQnwoxBpXhDBIJAfQn1FiN0LTQATYHcUqBGFNvUaThclqpX8kRccDv2IwpHfnUuCZsXnIeKyjrRlqYjplksoph4EtqbQkKe9tkpYT_pWikRMVZrGmJXcnDKaqECkUjknVWyqf5PGEkqM_clIa-toV5THTC-eDok4nYGn3EkVvRnpd1-sFQxqhw/s2576/20230123_102657.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1527" data-original-width="2576" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhWeD_dQnwoxBpXhDBIJAfQn1FiN0LTQATYHcUqBGFNvUaThclqpX8kRccDv2IwpHfnUuCZsXnIeKyjrRlqYjplksoph4EtqbQkKe9tkpYT_pWikRMVZrGmJXcnDKaqECkUjknVWyqf5PGEkqM_clIa-toV5THTC-eDok4nYGn3EkVvRnpd1-sFQxqhw/w640-h380/20230123_102657.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-14004173069670419932023-01-18T13:49:00.000+00:002023-01-18T13:49:04.799+00:00run/write<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9TggbgXEYCHHZveNhbVro5_S2RJ6wj4vHonJL0fZid3H3Ky34_S7H4Shx6_s7DqR0iraq6zZsDpyGH61Nm78Evzo7josgs3Y69laMIOItS40wr4XXHPd--L_NJYsbhoByOwD1SVGz4VgClvMyMTxKWc77CgoF3nRyfyG6F-bLaiXswPtyXxyBdSrdAA/s2600/frost%2018th%20Jan-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1950" data-original-width="2600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9TggbgXEYCHHZveNhbVro5_S2RJ6wj4vHonJL0fZid3H3Ky34_S7H4Shx6_s7DqR0iraq6zZsDpyGH61Nm78Evzo7josgs3Y69laMIOItS40wr4XXHPd--L_NJYsbhoByOwD1SVGz4VgClvMyMTxKWc77CgoF3nRyfyG6F-bLaiXswPtyXxyBdSrdAA/w640-h480/frost%2018th%20Jan-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">I started running at the end of 2015 in an attempt to get as fit as I possibly could before reaching 60. Then it became a series of challenges to see what I could accomplish: 5k and 10k races, an alpine-like trail race across the mountains at the back of my hometown, Port Talbot, in South Wales, running 1000k in a year, a half marathon, and another half marathon, so I could at least say I'd run a whole one! </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It became social and supportive, running with a group of women every week. And it became a tool for my emotional and psychological well-being too. That became startlingly evident in 2020 when the first Covid pandemic lockdown coincided with my diagnosis of recurring breast cancer. I ran throughout that Spring and Summer until surgery at the end of October. Then my Dad died of Covid in December and, three months later, Mam died, her failing health exacerbated by losing her partner of 72 years. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It took me far more time to start running again than the surgeon had suggested, undoubtedly a response to grief as well as physical healing. And it was only a year after Mam died that I woke up one morning, suddenly lighter, able at last to process the details of my post-surgery pathology report, and, after more than a year, to feel grateful again, for life, for each day. A gift. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I'm back to my pre-surgery level of running now: 7 and 8 miles with my women's running group. Aiming to build this year to 10. Running on my own a couple of times a week too, along the fields and lanes of the Kent countryside, or across the beach and mountainsides of Port Talbot. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Those solo runs feel as if I am freeing my mind from a leash, letting it roam into the landscapes around me, and, at the same time, watching it settle, internally, to understandings and insights. Sometimes answers. Sometimes more questions.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And sometimes those runs give rise to words that feel worth sharing: I run/write. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The play on the word 'write' that sounds like 'right' is deliberate. Not that there is a right way to run. Or a right way to write. Just that it's right for me to be doing both.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>run/write 18/01/2023</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">sun on hard frost<br />there's forgiving and then<br />there's forgetting </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc-5fHSDNyEbExvJgPIDOT22w2_qH2qGyOHrcFKwJ7g0CRn-65VU9ax2F1npJ0E-6txXrDbAoGXL9to2cy7BtmJHF5os9iI7F06xFwHKIp5z63fmgFdpvSvKLeAlpb-DSLK5Ea-fbq7iYO7V8DRkx2cVbiQzsU84-qqpgSYbvv2zJghfqmcQ7Wg9oNvQ/s2600/frost%2018th%20Jan-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1567" data-original-width="2600" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc-5fHSDNyEbExvJgPIDOT22w2_qH2qGyOHrcFKwJ7g0CRn-65VU9ax2F1npJ0E-6txXrDbAoGXL9to2cy7BtmJHF5os9iI7F06xFwHKIp5z63fmgFdpvSvKLeAlpb-DSLK5Ea-fbq7iYO7V8DRkx2cVbiQzsU84-qqpgSYbvv2zJghfqmcQ7Wg9oNvQ/w640-h386/frost%2018th%20Jan-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTT6EW8qBXT3h4hv6YNwSI78AmBHSwE2jtnPkmADS4oi6GfFAhxMcAXrS7moQeefBSckKUhxxYkj2vTRXba7jB7kJjNagDoU3Ze7My767Lm9Zs_IVRissJ6zL9UZleOTfg3guhXUNoWhJgfG4rP9FAw2zodDMvbOa7lPCzP1Iwt3y-AgmrjNgwEofsg/s2600/frost%2018th%20Jan-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1362" data-original-width="2600" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTT6EW8qBXT3h4hv6YNwSI78AmBHSwE2jtnPkmADS4oi6GfFAhxMcAXrS7moQeefBSckKUhxxYkj2vTRXba7jB7kJjNagDoU3Ze7My767Lm9Zs_IVRissJ6zL9UZleOTfg3guhXUNoWhJgfG4rP9FAw2zodDMvbOa7lPCzP1Iwt3y-AgmrjNgwEofsg/w640-h336/frost%2018th%20Jan-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHmysTn6ezYSPjLyOyeNX_nmLiijlcOpVNQG8-O-giPPD1JC2kKNH0OLYJ-KE3K6dHrpkLrBJCrMZ38zY9qiaQBxi2SWSfGOeYqlEglK4D8O5Q2e0zgoujCtylpi0GGGsS-FP1-G-TG0s7YkKC8ZPUQeSRo0TOx6d9Sq0xOppJyuY2is2m3AjC6vavRw/s2600/frost%2018th%20Jan-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1626" data-original-width="2600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHmysTn6ezYSPjLyOyeNX_nmLiijlcOpVNQG8-O-giPPD1JC2kKNH0OLYJ-KE3K6dHrpkLrBJCrMZ38zY9qiaQBxi2SWSfGOeYqlEglK4D8O5Q2e0zgoujCtylpi0GGGsS-FP1-G-TG0s7YkKC8ZPUQeSRo0TOx6d9Sq0xOppJyuY2is2m3AjC6vavRw/w640-h400/frost%2018th%20Jan-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-35204551848663485822022-12-21T12:15:00.001+00:002022-12-21T12:15:15.160+00:00Haiku<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">winter solstice</div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">always running back</div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">to the beginning </div></blockquote></blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGOTU_AjoJAiDaEluP2TJuTo1-dZTyqKxAQuCGkEesIS-pM8aTN0AL74iyrX3yNOAXbdtrcziBF5LAv7ef8oob1qzSQotjRDqN0m5U08B33BIJe1UBi9G3Tr6dYZE0kTr1kEqZ_QyrWib5vUrjBYLjWpo8bZBwoyrIj2lCQGSzn-Q3Pax-KF6kr6vTbQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="1198" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGOTU_AjoJAiDaEluP2TJuTo1-dZTyqKxAQuCGkEesIS-pM8aTN0AL74iyrX3yNOAXbdtrcziBF5LAv7ef8oob1qzSQotjRDqN0m5U08B33BIJe1UBi9G3Tr6dYZE0kTr1kEqZ_QyrWib5vUrjBYLjWpo8bZBwoyrIj2lCQGSzn-Q3Pax-KF6kr6vTbQ=w640-h430" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-67266097335496446412022-12-06T19:23:00.003+00:002022-12-06T19:23:29.539+00:00Haiku<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEizakmgwPDQN5nqr8czsvvba0Qt5xNjx6Vj6tRQFRfXkzagGsfkhN_VEzttEVXq_B1NAbNobpdnfCJBY3-41_GdLStLsFx3rou3-ePuaEgDFXjcoqvH0qjEd2A0iFQnytfl8InorgY-RVGg1R4UDxfZ_N-FMkv7Tie_6K2d7tOiJ80X1nwRxePVKIz4wA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="2048" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEizakmgwPDQN5nqr8czsvvba0Qt5xNjx6Vj6tRQFRfXkzagGsfkhN_VEzttEVXq_B1NAbNobpdnfCJBY3-41_GdLStLsFx3rou3-ePuaEgDFXjcoqvH0qjEd2A0iFQnytfl8InorgY-RVGg1R4UDxfZ_N-FMkv7Tie_6K2d7tOiJ80X1nwRxePVKIz4wA=w640-h292" width="640" /></a></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></div><div style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; text-align: center; white-space: normal;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">where the river </span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: center;">meets the sea</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: center;">remembering </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: center;">my parents</div><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-31847960391398473712022-12-01T13:38:00.000+00:002022-12-01T13:38:21.606+00:00Poem ~ Pulse<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Pulse</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Mam, I found an acorn </div><div>while running along Comp Lane</div><div>a month ago and Tony </div><div>put it in a jar and now look, </div><div><br /></div><div>the promise of a tree: </div><div>both root and leaf.</div><div><br /></div><div>I would have called you</div><div>today to tell you this, </div><div>on what would have been </div><div>your 90th birthday. Instead</div><div><br /></div><div>I am holding this jar, a gift, </div><div>and proof of something </div><div><br /></div><div>I am struggling to find </div><div>the right words for, so</div><div>I am leaving it to Einstein</div><div>who said energy cannot be</div><div><br /></div><div>created or destroyed, only</div><div>changed from one form </div><div><br /></div><div>to another, like the pulse </div><div>of this new life pushing</div><div>towards the light. You </div><div>are never far from me.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgaKBT2vL0LHJ-WTGcoELNT8Izn0p9of68Wtb8FvwLaJ1NiUUsiL4K4gEnvY3e4d0gjUErX53GRx3eihF13MAZgOM0FHooW3zvfvZlnB6KK5yHbnhKuHfN6fTlwCACiRQdOlmIJcp7xuFOf7gcdcXH3w8v2wrhP7jYFy4I9yM7fI4Jms4rsk3gmqHN4A/s1801/20221201_101644.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1801" data-original-width="1049" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgaKBT2vL0LHJ-WTGcoELNT8Izn0p9of68Wtb8FvwLaJ1NiUUsiL4K4gEnvY3e4d0gjUErX53GRx3eihF13MAZgOM0FHooW3zvfvZlnB6KK5yHbnhKuHfN6fTlwCACiRQdOlmIJcp7xuFOf7gcdcXH3w8v2wrhP7jYFy4I9yM7fI4Jms4rsk3gmqHN4A/w233-h400/20221201_101644.jpg" width="233" /></a></div></div><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH_kRj52J1266bO7B5lmHeNzOqYPAHzIfbk-9sLVHQhlBG9CRX-Ez7LZcRgu7-_L4YRrJRgspnjQtg_zRN-8pzR4CH-FgUnORn298FkNlB4ec--LAGoWPfnGEL8SxvBAMoIiLQC-xuwdLLIz6A_cXC8pCT9_6ySBxg_ryH8Xw2qYuioprG4SUUe8QXBw/s1492/20221201_101652.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1492" data-original-width="1320" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH_kRj52J1266bO7B5lmHeNzOqYPAHzIfbk-9sLVHQhlBG9CRX-Ez7LZcRgu7-_L4YRrJRgspnjQtg_zRN-8pzR4CH-FgUnORn298FkNlB4ec--LAGoWPfnGEL8SxvBAMoIiLQC-xuwdLLIz6A_cXC8pCT9_6ySBxg_ryH8Xw2qYuioprG4SUUe8QXBw/w354-h400/20221201_101652.jpg" width="354" /></a></div><br /></div>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1451211466898351699.post-69113331284236872382022-11-09T14:27:00.003+00:002022-11-09T14:27:53.496+00:00Haibun ~ The Reality of Dreams<div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: verdana;">The Reality of Dreams</b></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The sour dregs of last night's dream are still with me this morning as I run </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">through wet leaves, mud and puddles, my mind irrationally wondering if </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I could have shown more kindness </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">to the woman who brought me </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">a small white coffee instead of </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">the cappuccino I'd ordered </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">more than 30 minutes earlier, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">because the rest of her patrons </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">were on her side, glowering at me </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">when I told her it was wrong and </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">too late now, anyway, and placed it </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">on the windowsill by the door and left. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I remember the name of the cafe </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">began with M. I remember the clink </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">of cup on saucer when I put it down, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">that the woman was rushing and anxious. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I remember it was raining.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Bear with me now as I unpick it all, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">if you have the time, or sometimes </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">feel haunted by your own dreams. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I am, of course, the anxious woman. And yes, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I qualify as a judgemental clientele. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">But I am myself too, opening the door </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">and stepping </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">into the clean, cool rain. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">And I am both the absence and presence </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">of kindness which is, perhaps, something </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">we all struggle with at times, when </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">we must choose to bless ourselves over others. </span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxKqAvo337NdBkG9RtDJiKFCa-4O37JK-MU4JcXKUxJGJjr7kIzhYz7BOa9Clb_2QiJoRIMI9dFxm6wEAyln_NcpbW4KZKVRWSlG4dvDL4tQDNQAWC-WPNzoUAAo_JAD5oERfEPlVv3NshwhwejJEwE49uIufMkFOYicBAe0kLiXIKwH5X8Dq7LS3EXg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="417" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxKqAvo337NdBkG9RtDJiKFCa-4O37JK-MU4JcXKUxJGJjr7kIzhYz7BOa9Clb_2QiJoRIMI9dFxm6wEAyln_NcpbW4KZKVRWSlG4dvDL4tQDNQAWC-WPNzoUAAo_JAD5oERfEPlVv3NshwhwejJEwE49uIufMkFOYicBAe0kLiXIKwH5X8Dq7LS3EXg=w571-h640" width="571" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Lynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.com0