cowslip, two poems, one a more human draft (i hope), intense week, london walk, birthplace, poetry readings from ukraine, white hart fyfield

This self-set cowslip comes back at the top of the lawn each year. This time looking particularly vibrant in yesterday's fresh spring sunlight.

Included below are two poems. The first is an alternative version of the one I posted the time before last. I worked and reworked the piece, pushing it further and further away from narrative towards a kind of gnomic abstraction, I realise now. I used to do that sometimes when reviewing. Worrying at the brief texts until they became stark, rigid in form and expression and I had to re-find more yielding, more human drafts.

I don't know whether everyone will agree with that analysis but I hope this new-older iteration is more immediate and nuanced.

The second poem goes with the post on the Wolf Moon of 18 January.

Oxford full term has now ended. Where did those eight weeks go!

The week before last was especially intense. Taking part in an online Research Data Management workshop and a giving a talk on Oxford's Latin American Collections in London, and preparing for both, in between time off as a result of a stomach bug. 

Going to London on the train was not something I'd experienced since before the pandemic. The Tube strike meant a two and a half mile walk each way, which proved unexpectedly fun. I saw lots of landmarks that I remembered from when I was a boy, on visits to see my gran. Even walking past the place where I was born - I don't think I've ever been so physically close to that place in... well, a very long time!

I joined readings given on Zoom by three Ukrainian poets at the end of last week. They read from towns caught up in the war. It was profoundly moving and inspiring. (More details on this in due course.)

Yesterday I was treated to lunch at the White Hart at Fyfield. It was great!

--

Toronto 2010

I was sitting in the Hemingway,
a bar I'd never heard of
in a city I never imagined I'd visit.

I was thrilled 
to be at the conference,
flight paid for by the university.

It should have been a proud moment,
pleased for myself, pleased for
Dad
and how proud he was of me.

The end of the first day,
time for reflection and a pint of Burton,
burger and chips ordered.

- When I facebooked later
a friend said, You're in Canada?!... -

But first,
opening the browser on my new phone
I thumb-stumbled to the site I'd been told about.
The London Gazette.
Worked out how to search it.

First Mum's page, then Dad's.
They'd been bankrupted individually
though the debt I'd only discovered 
a fortnight before was 
both theirs.

Just under a million.

Whenever I achieved something -
the theatre set that got me my one
school tie (I loved the blue and silver stripe
wouldn't have wanted any other) - 
all Mum could talk about was what she'd done.
Always, of course, unattainable.

--

Moon - Tuesday 18 January 2022

On the morning
before it became the wolf, 
I walked to the shed to get logs. 

As I returned, 
there it was to the north west, 
low, still waxing gibbous.

Behind the trees 
in the manor gardens.

mtns' birthday, a lifetime, belief

 

mtns began in March 2020.

It seems a lifetime ago... But there is always hope, and love and the really good things - we must believe that.

racing, snow moon, spot the difference, justthoughtsnstuff/com's twelfth birthday, 'hemingway's, toronto 2010'

Racing through February.

Must be because term is so busy, everyone doing the usual things plus picking up plans that were shelved during the pandemic.

Took this photo of the full Snow Moon earlier in the week. Spot the difference between it and the one I posted in April last year: https://morethoughtsnstuff.blogspot.com/2021/04/day-before-full-moon-pink-moon-hazy.html. That time it was the Pink Moon, the day before it became full. Both photographs were taken from the same place - just outside the back door. I would have expected differences between the geography in one and in the other, on the assumption that the moon might have turned a bit over the previous ten months but then I'm no doubt showing my ignorance.

Meanwhile, it is justthoughtsnstuff.com's birthday today. It amazes me to think it's twelve years since I first posted in February 2010: https://justthoughtsnstuff.blogspot.com/2010/02.

Here's a poem - it's a vignette taken from what for much of the time was an exciting and happy trip to Canada (see https://justthoughtsnstuff.blogspot.com/search?q=toronto). The poem is a work in progress. I meant to write about that evening before. It never made it into Trust: A family story but has remained fresh in my mind, though with the passing of time, the perspective has changed.

Hemingway's, Toronto 2010

The end of the first 
day of the conference.
A time for reflection. 
A pint of Burton,
burger and chips ordered.

- On Facebook later,
a friend goes, Canada? -

It should be such a 
proud moment: pleased for 
myself, pleased for Dad
and how proud he is.
But I haven't spoken
to him for weeks.
Does he even know
I'm here?

I open the browser 
on my new phone,
thumb-stumble to the site.
The London Gazette.
Work out how to search it
properly.

First Mum's page, then Dad's.
Bankrupted individually
by her cruel obsession,
though the debt that I 
only discovered 
a fortnight ago, is 
both theirs.

A million.

Whatever I achieved -
the theatre set that 
got me my one
school colours tie 
(I loved the blue 
and silver stripe,
wouldn't have wanted 
any other) - 
all Mum talked about 
was what she'd done and
what she was going to do.

Always unattainable.

What people
were doing to her:

Unverifiable.

We should have known:

Unbelievable.

mount owen bike ride, a poem

Just a quick bike ride,
no more than thirty, thirty-five minutes.

From the village to the incline of the mount -
mount?
It's what it's called but I never know
whether it's a joke.
I suppose everything's relative and from the top, 
the country dips and rises -
the start of the Cotswolds,
I like to think.
And somewhere, I've read that the village
is the Gateway to them.
But, is it? Or is that a travel agent's
ruse?

But ...
On the straight, after the brow,
looking, dangerously, forgetting how
pitted and pot-holed the Tarmac is,
you can imagine you've
leaped from flat earth - the
Polder Lands, Victorians called our wide,
wide stretch of the river's planes -
to vistas and rolls that make poets 
lyrical and estate agents skip.

In the far distance used to be the
power station with its micro-climactic
cloud.

But now it's gone.
Or has it?
I can never remember whether the papers
said they'd left one tower - 
and sometimes I have fancied I can see it.
There!

At the junction, I turn back and
soon climb the longer, gentler slope.
After the straight, the road and fields falling;
the village, the near-thousand-year-old spire ...
The old part, the new part, the newest part,
that everyone says spoils the view.
But then you think,
Am I being a NIMBY?
And on a day like today, the sun
coming through, traces of mist softening the buildings,
you wonder what the fuss was about,
where the truth lies.

before the wolf, logs, returning, waxing gibbous

On the morning before it became the wolf, I walked to the shed to get logs. Returning, there it was to the north west, low, still waxing gibbous behind the trees in the manor gardens.

cycling, winter-sunned, the gateless gated road, cheesy beetroots, freshness lingers, weirdness persists, optimism?

 

After the ice melted, I went on a cycle ride through the winter-sunned countryside. So different to the slatiness that capped all enthusiasm yesterday.

This photo was taken looking back along Calcroft Lane (aka The Gated Road - no longer with its gates) near Clanfield, our neighbouring village. The field on the left is enormous, usually planted with corn and either greened by winter corn or fallow at this time of year. This time, though, sheep graze on strips of fodder roots.

The water is lying on this and many fields. 

Cheesy beetroots with ham later - thanks J! - the beetroots harvested just before Christmas having lasted longer than expected.

Mice have been nibbling spuds and wrecking Hessian sacks in the shed. Monsters!

The freshness that was there at the start of the working week after the holidays has survived but with Oxford 0th Week beginning today, tasks mount.

The new phase of the pandemic, living with Covid, is as weird as anything that has come before. Though one can't help but clutch at the encouraging words of optimists.

first violet of 2022!

First violet of 2022 - on a verge, between Queen Street and Bushy Row, Bampton.

Happy New Year!