Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to paint a poetic tableau using a fixed poetry style entitled The Tableau – created by Emily Romano in October of 2008
Two crowds of demonstrators facing off across double lines of harassed, interfacing riot police each crowd spouting the bias of whichever media feed dogs have been pushing their buttons there is much darning (and worse) as the police struggle to keep them hemmed in whilst a journo darts in and tries to buttonhole some talking heads for the news needles his victims to say something outrageous but the crowd gathers round and rips into the man with the microphone, who wishes he was home this Saturday afternoon taking a nap instead of mining this admittedly rich seam of newsworthy division – newsworthy though hardly novel – politicians of both sides have been dog-whistling immigration to whip up votes for decades – a pattern that no amount of careful work with a seam picker – will undo and ease the tensions…
The granites and schists of my dark and stubborn country form the bedrock of woe that has lasted a lifetime, just waiting to poke through the drift that was built up in more active days. The strata built of depositing a family, laying down a career, the metamorphosis from one relationship to another and the occasional intrusion or outflow of molten anger or passion, built a land that seemed impregnable. But tears are relentless and oceans rise and fall, cutting into the margins and then came the ice age of retirement, the weight of ice depressing the whole and stripping all away except that bedrock and leaving even that, scarred and scratched, rounded into the low hills of the bed where I lay and even the black dog has no energy to venture out on the soggy moors that cover the degraded granite hills.
“The granites and schists Of my dark and stubborn country.”
–Nan Shepherd, “The Hill Burns” from In the Cairngorms (Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1934)
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, merrildsmith in Prosery, invites us to write a piece of prose poetry in no more than 144 words and using the given quote above. I should say that the subject of this piece is not my experience but that of someone close to me. As a student of Geology (and Geography) I am aware that Scotland, which is where you find the Cairngorms, has had a remarkable persistence through many geological ages and each age has added layers which may subsequently been removed in another geological age – I am not sure whether this does not give an ultimately optimistic view of things even if it requires a timescale in which we humans may turn out to be but a flash in the pan. Anyway, a metaphor suggested itself with this prompt… I hope it does not bring anyone down…
Heather Cox Richardson sours my morning with further news of the outrageous disregard for law which is building a classic dictatorship and encouraging other wannabe authoritarians around the world.
I leave to do the weeks shopping my neighbour, supervised by his wife, is remodelling a wooden box into a trug for an exhibition of snowdrops to be held in February. Life goes on…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Lisa or Li in Poetics invites us to write about Legendary Creatures. I should remind you that I am an Old Dragon – a former pupil at The Dragon School, Oxford…
1 – Snow was forecast this week, and sure enough, it came, but I was grateful it was just a dusting on the hills since it was a drive to work day…
The view from our kitchen window
2 – The weather forecast also alerted me to wrap the olive tree against frost, in good time, so we are now stuck with this ghostly shrouded prescence for the Winter…
3 – A giant toddler has been let loose on the sky with a white crayon – anyone remember Harold and the Purple Crayon?
4 – Last weekend I was in our local town, Keighley, and saw this shop window, and as you know, I love repetition and took the first shot, but then went inside for more repeated ballas of wool. However the best bit, was I got talking to the shop owner who turned out to be a mine of information about fabrics and I mercilessly picked his brains (he was delighted – really!) for my A to Z upcoming in April, on the subject of Fabrics. He was made redundant in the ’80’s, and turned to recycling waste from the fabric mills around Yorkshire – cardboard and polythene, obviously, but also waste fabric pieces. He started sorting the latter and sold them back to mills that reprocessed them and included a percentage in new yarns. In ten years, he went form having £200 in the bank, to £100,000! Where there’s muck, there’s brass! Best of all, he alerted me to the fact that so many fabrics are “Warp knitted” as opposed to older weaving techniques – think T-shirt “Jersey” material…
5 – It was my day to take the Micro-biology samples from work, for testing at a firm at Luddenden Foot, in the Calderdale Valley. I always love this drive and the drive home “over the tops” and this Thursday it was crisp, sunny with blue skies and mercifully, there was so little traffic, I was able to dart into the little quarry/layby on the wrong side of the road and take the following pictures and a video. It is one of those spots where you could point the camera in any direction and get a beautiful shot as proved by the panoramic video. If any of you want to come and live in “God’s own county!” (Yorkshire) – you would be most welcome…
And further up, emerging onto the moors, this Wild Rose bearing rosehips…
6 – And no Ten Things of Thankful without a texture shot, this week, Autumnal, frosty leaves…
7 – We had a most enjoyable hour reading our poems at the dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night Live session yesterday – read a poem about COVID lockdown in Crete, where we were fortunate to spend 6 months out of harm’s way… https://how-would-you-know.com/2025/11/this-is-crete.html
8 – Our new business (by which I mean my boss’s family) – a Self-Storage facility, opened without mishap this week and we had the first customers! I did various bits of design in the run-up and may pop in to give a hand as it gets busy…
9 – Beverley had her birthday and was delighted with the brightly coloured inside, unglazed outside Tapas bowls I bought for her in Aldi six months ago, you have to buy then when you see them as when they’re gone, they’re gone…
10 – Despite her depression, Barbara has taken charge of buying Christmas presents for the family and has almost completed the task!!!
We wake up to air as clear as water sit on the terrace under the Carob tree as the shadows move across the mountain whose spine looks like a sleeping dragon warming its reptilian blood in the morning sun waiting its moment to arise and shake itself free of olive groves, villas, and prickly pears
Plants are waging a defensive war against heat and drought and hungry creatures not only cacti, but the cups of Mediterranean Acorns are tough and scaled with prickles and dark green gloss or pale silver green dress the trees from Olive to Eucalyptus
The absence of people, as Cretans hide indoors in COVID lockdown caution makes us feel like the last people on earth as we drive the back roads where we are scarcely likely to be caught by policemen sleeping somnolent in their station in the Winter midday hour – blazing fierce, this close to Africa
No tourists to disturb the hibernating hoteliers piles of nested chairs congregate in corners of kafenio courtyards but supermarkets still shelter cars from the sun while masked customers complete their weekly shop but masks don’t stop the swapping of sparse gossip at the open-air market—fruit and vegetables piled high as ever
This is Crete in COVID lockdown Winter hotter than a British summer and dry except for the occasional storm when Greek gods play bagatelle bouncing thunderballs around the mountains and drenching the lands in torrential rain flash flooding the dry gorges and riverbeds
We steep like teabags in the many moods from spectacular sunrises bursting up from cliff-bounded sea sunrays angling through the odd cloudy day resting tourist boats on the sparkling bay awaiting their turn at the boatyard beauty parlour purple bloom on ripening black olives
Family bubbles emerge for the olive harvest for some things in life must go on as normal and for a few weeks, the groves are as busy as the centipedes that appear each morning on the terrace – there is knocking down of olives, bonfiring the prunings blueing the air with smoke plumes – testament to the busyness
And afterwards, the empty garden chairs doze off again underneath the olive trees…
1 – As touted last week, we were “baby-sitting” Bev and Don’s young Border Collie – Winnie. With my hip grumbling more and more, I chose little and often walkswise and here is Winnie on a long training lead going round the churchyard (our house in the background)
2 – The good thing about walking a dog is that you go places and see things you might otherwise miss… The bright berries wrapped around thegate pillar of the Old Vicarage caught my eye…
3 – Also this unseasonal Blackberry blossom – you’ve got ot hand it to nature – it does try…
4 – My Grandson, Dillon and his girlfriend, Izzy, arrived back from several months travelling in France, Spain and Morroco, safe and sound , and came over to take Winnie home after just 24 hours. Winnie’s enthusiasm for playing indoor fetch with an unfortunate soft-toy squirrel was inexhuastible and so it was a relief to let her go…
5 – Not on of my textures (though it could be…) but another thing I like to photograph – repeated patterns – in this case a batch of Oreo set Cheesecakes at the factory awaiting boxing up. I’m aware that in the World Heritage site – Salts Mill, the “museum” room, whatever facts and pictures of the mill it has, has not got a single piece of the fabric that was made there and these cheesecakes are destined to be equally ephemeral…
6 – I inherited this pot containing both Easter and Christmas Cactus from my late mother, although neither one blooms at the time of their eponymous festivals. Now the “Christmas” side has it’s turn. I would really like to repot them not so much because they have been in the same soil for decades – Baby Bio in their water keepd them healthy, in fact so healthy that I have had to raise the pot higher and higher because the leaves and flowers are trailing on the ground. I dare not repot them anyway, because the plant is fragile and leaves and more are easily broken off and besides, they are in a terracotta pot which I would have to break since I can’t envisage turning the plant upside down… Perhaps the maxim “If its not broken – don’t fix it!” comes into play and just keep raising the pot higher…
And flanking it are two money trees – one from my late sister – the grove on the right, and my choice of form – a single trunk at left – what’s your preference…
7 – The cat is still holding off it’s predations in the garden…
8 – I have finished my poem for the real-world Keighley Poetry Group which this month is on the subject of Kettle[s]
9 – Since Dillon and Izzy have asked me to teach them to paint (inspired by all the wonderful things they have seen on their travels) I ordered a (seconhand) book which I had but got lost along the way Thames and Hudson “A Concise History of Watercolour” and it has been like being re-united with an old friend… The pictures were (and still are) an influence on what I like to paint…
This one, by the American atrist Whistler, who did great work in England, has the abstract form in all its rectangles whilst still being completely realistic and this has led me to love doing paintings of doors and views through passageways…
What is the pot of truth to which we cleave? Friendship is the balm that gets us through life Soothes us when injured by all means of strife.
Whatever injury makes us now grieve – For upsets and perils are always rife What is the pot of truth to which we cleave? Friendship is the balm that gets us through life
So turn to your friends and never you grieve Be you troubled by husband, children, wife True friends cut through troubles like a sharp knife What is the pot of truth to which we cleave? Friendship is the balm that gets us through life Soothes us when injured by all means of strife.
usually 10 syllables per line as iambic pentameter
Postscript! – I wondered if there was a translator app. for Chaucerian (Middle) English and there is at https://openl.io/translate/middle-english Here is Friendship translated…
What is the pot of soth to which we cleven? Frendshipe is the baume that bringeth us thurgh lyf, It soothen us whan we ben hurt by alle manere of stryf.
What so ever harm maketh us now to grieven – For distresses and perils ben ever ryf, What is the pot of soth to which we cleven? Frendshipe is the baume that bringeth us thurgh lyf.
Therfore turn thee to thy frendes and never thee grieven, Be thou troubled by husbonde, children, or wyf, Trewe frendes sheren through wo as with sharp knyf. What is the pot of soth to which we cleven? Frendshipe is the baume that bringeth us thurgh lyf, It soothen us whan we ben hurt by alle manere of stryf.
I might even have dipped my toes In the water of surfing if I’d just stopped working sooner left more time to get to Knock airport if I’d chosen the main road instead of the back road if I had been travelling slower even though the road was dry if the farmer had trimmed the hedge on the blind bend if the tractor was not pulling a wide trailer if it hadn’t rained two days before if the drain under the road wasn’t blocked if I hadn’t braked just where the water flowed across the road if the van hadn’t skidded on the slick I wouldn’t have worn this splint for twenty-five years I might not have done some teaching I might not have become a draughtsman I might not have moved back to England I wouldn’t have opened that restaurant joined choirs, made frozen yoghurt made this house out of a stable lived this life beyond the bend…
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