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…
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…
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…
There are two major blogging challenges that occupy my year, Te A to Z Challenge and PoPoFest and each year of each Challenge/Festival, I seem to heap ever higher expectations on my particpation, and this year has been no exception! For the postcards, I like to make my own and so in 2023, I used favourite photographs I had taken, in 2024, AI generated images that hadn’t made the final selection for particular projects but which were good in their own right, and for 2025, I decided to revive my very intermittent painting skills.
I have painted since my teenage years, which you can read about in this year’s A to Z here. However, whi;st I spent much of my life in applied arts, signwriting, graphic design and the like, pure painting languished – how many times did I take my paints on holiday only to bring them home unused – so making at least 31 postcard-sized paintings (in the end I did more for bonus cards sent to me on the International List) was a challenge. I produced about 4 on most weekends through July and August, sometimes working on 2 at a time as each dried. Many were watercolour, many acrylics, some mixed, and one pencil drawing.
I’ve decided to post them in a single Exhibition post (Exhibit if you’re American) together with their handwritten (excuse the writing, please) poems, which according to the aims of PoPoFest, are to spontaneously write an epistolary poem to a stranger, preferably one which references the image on the postcard. I blew up photographs from years past, which I had hoped would make paintings and in particular, pictures from Crete where we spent 6 months during lockdown in 2020 – enjoy…
The sky here is watercolour, the rest acrylic, but even in this scan, it’s possible to see the greater luminosity of watercolour…
Watercolour, which enables the “tunnel” to glow with reflected light
Watercolour
Watercolour – the subtelties of the sky didn’t scan well…
Watercolour and gouache on yellow, Elephant dung paper (I like its absorbency)…
Watercolour on buff, Elephant dung paper (this colour paper was a little too absorbent – too grabby)…
Watercolour with masking fluid. There should only have been 3 rails but I painted along the horizon line by mistake!
Watercolour
Pencil
Acrylic and watercolour on yellow, Elephant dung paper.
Acrylic and watercolour on yellow, Elephant dung paper.
Watercolour. The challenge here was to give the headland 3 3-dimensional form and not just make a flat cliff…
Watercolour
Watercolour
Acrylic
Watercolour
Acrylic
Watercolour
Pencil, Watercolour, Acrylic.
Watercolour
Acrylic
Watercolour
Watercolour
Acrylic. This allowed the nearly dry brush technique to create the reflections on the water.
Watercolour
Watercolour
Acrylic
Watercolour
This is the same subject as the previous painting but done in acrylic.
Top left is the photograph from which I made 3 different paintings…
20256 Received Poem Cento
This is a Cento poem made from lines found in all the Poetry Postcard poems I received in 2025…
I: Destruction
People are waking in the night, hearts racing, blood pounding dreams, fantasies, deceptions, escape The future is – unexplainable I try not to disturb them when I slowly reach my hand toward the culture that informed my values…
Cruel and crude, greedy old man — shouting, destroying the Bad King who demands from him, the Good Kingdom his world has become much smaller a pretty close second Puppets! Who is pulling the strings? Like my heart, they did not weep another missed connection, warped, failed shouting colour into gray streets where no one listens the beauty of the Badlands
We know so little – despite knowing so much Consumption society has chewed up spit out this vast and beautiful continent. transported in cardboard boxes to lockers at hub food discouraged now as our progress is torn down, a government being dismantled thinking then it can’t happen here. But it does I’m not sure there is enough of me today bobbing movement of nature you are missed daily somewhere unknown, another world away; it was there ….no more what if I told you still, I hope for forgiveness… the suggestion of brokenness the promise of wholeness we are all a part of everything – I can’t help hoping
II: Redemption if humans could fly, would we ever walk? around my imagination whatever you want’s okay! I close my eyes and breathe in fireweed your magic encapsulates me waiting for the perfect day that clear blue sky is here year round stairway to heaven sun drops sparkle air to reach, always, for the light someone is thinking of me remembering gratitude’s call to learn what was above and below today’s sun reluctantly begins to set…
Poets and lines:- Penelope Moffet 1-2, Jerrold Narland 3, Kerfe Roig 4, Susan Montgomery 5-6, Lawrence Pevec 7, Nancy R. Parr 8-9, Emily Bernhardt 10-11, Anon. 12, Grant Swados 13, Margie Ripperger 14, Anon. 15, Akua Lezli Hope 16, Jeannine Jordan 17-18, , Mary Mueller 19, Cassandra Bissel 20, Suzanne Harris 21-22, Karen Keltz 23-24, Ruth Vanklstine 25-26, Laura Gamache 27, Anon. 28, Lulu 29, Dava Wharton 30, Margaret Roncone 31-32, Rebecca 33-34, Muriel Karrr 35, Lisa Humphrey 36, Anon. 37-38, Nitya Prema 39, Karen Loeb 40, Amy Leonard 41-42, Donita Ries 43, Sandra Gadjewski 44, Diana Kolpak 45-46, Margaret Hill-Daniels 47, Cathy Wetter 48, Mary Skeen 49-50, Lynn Caldwell 51, Susan Vespoli 52, Julie Naslund 53, Angela Marie Ebba 54, Lula 55, P. O’Neill 56-58,Pence 59.
1 – After a pretty rainy week, Saturday morning dawned sunny…
2 – The reservoir above the village is now brim full, although the Yorkshire hosepipe ban is not yet lifted, it shouldn’t be long 9not that we need to water now lol)…
3 – I am always grateful to live in such a beautiful place and so, the sun out, I went up to “The Nab” to take a photo of Silsden village for you…
This is the reverse of the view from our house – The Nab is at top left…
And turning the camera round, here is the outcrop of Millstone Grit that forms The Nab. And yes, there is a quarry up there where agricultural workers with little to do in Winter, would carve millstones, water troughs and the like, out of the rock.
Whilst I was up there, a fog bank rolled in below me to the right…
And one more shot…
4 – Gratitude my daughter’s quite young Border Collie, Winnie, is sweet-tempered and settles down after initial excitement at greeting a visitor, quickly enough fo next weekend we shall be baby-sitting her at our house…
Winnie
5 – By dint of Harrisa pepper, Dragons teeth deployment of sticks and thorny rose clippings, I seem finally, to have deterred the nameless cat who has been scratching in my bulb containers…
6 – I finished the very last task of my Poetry Postcard Festival participation for this year – a Cento poem using lines from each of the 43 poems on a postcard I received during July and August this year – it’s the post before this one, here on the blog…
7 – My friend who runs Collaborature – an online journal for collaborative poems, and I, have now topped 1,000 lines of what is turning into a novella written in Pushkin or “Onegin” sonnets after his book Eugene Onegin. You can read our epic “Shipmates” here.
8 – I shall have a busy but different week at work since my bosses are opening a self-storage warehouse in an old office building and they want me to be there for the first week to help get it running.
9. My grandson Dillon and his girlfriend Izzy, will be living at home with their parents Bev and Don in the next village, Addingham for the next year, having spent the Summer touring in their small camper van. They have asked me to teach them how to paint which will be fun…
10. Grateful to have been inducted into The Hall of Hostinae of Ten Things Thankful and for all the lovely messages of welcome from you all…
Poetry Postcard Festival 2025 Received Postcard Cento
I: Destruction
People are waking in the night hearts racing, blood pounding dreams, fantasies, deceptions, escape The future is – unexplainable I try not to disturb them when I slowly reach my hand toward the culture that informed my values… Cruel and crude, greedy old man — shouting, destroying the Bad King who demands from him, the Good Kingdom his world has become much smaller a pretty close second Puppets! Who is pulling the strings? Like my heart, they did not weep another missed connection, warped, failed shouting colour into gray streets where no one listens the beauty of the Badlands
We know so little – despite knowing so much Consumption society has chewed up spit out this vast and beautiful continent. transported in cardboard boxes to lockers at Hub Food discouraged now as our progress is torn down, a government being dismantled thinking then it can’t happen here. But it does I’m not sure there is enough of me today bobbing movement of nature you are missed daily somewhere unknown, another world away; it was there ….no more what if I told you still, I hope for forgiveness… the suggestion of brokenness the promise of wholeness we are all a part of everything – I can’t help hoping
II: Redemption if humans could fly, would we ever walk? around my imagination whatever you want’s okay! I close my eyes and breathe in fireweed your magic encapsulates me waiting for the perfect day that clear blue sky is here year round stairway to heaven sun drops sparkle air to reach, always, for the light someone is thinking of me remembering gratitude’s call to learn what was above and below today’s sun reluctantly begins to set…
Poets and lines:- Penelope Moffet 1-2, Jerrold Narland 3, Kerfe Roig 4, Susan Montgomery 5-6, Lawrence Pevec 7, Nancy R. Parr 8-9, Emily Bernhardt 10-11, Anon. 12, Grant Swados 13, Margie Ripperger 14, Anon. 15, Akua Lezli Hope 16, Jeannine Jordan 17-18, , Mary Mueller 19, Cassandra Bissel 20, Suzanne Harris 21-22, Karen Keltz 23-24, Ruth Vanklstine 25-26, Laura Gamache 27, Anon. 28, Lulu 29, Dava Wharton 30, Margaret Roncone 31-32, Rebecca 33-34, Muriel Karrr 35, Lisa Humphrey 36, Anon. 37-38, Nitya Prema 39, Karen Loeb 40, Amy Leonard 41-42, Donita Ries 43, Sandra Gadjewski 44, Diana Kolpak 45-46, Margaret Hill-Daniels 47, Cathy Wetter 48, Mary Skeen 49-50, Lynn Caldwell 51, Susan Vespoli 52, Julie Naslund 53, Angela Marie Ebba 54, Lula 55, P. O’Neill 56-58,Pence 59.
This cento poem takes lines from all the postcard poems I received during the July-August Poetry Postcard Festival (POPoFest) run by Cascadia Poetics LAB out of Seattle, USA. Most of the participants are American but it seems that many want to send a postcard to poets elsewhere and so all the no-US poets are sent out on a separate list – so that I, as a UK resident, was lucky enough to receive 24 from my Group 4 list and 19 “bonus ” cards from the International list.
Taking a line from each, two poems emerged, which I have chosen to present as Parts 1 & 2 since the bleakness of the first needs amelioration by the optimism of the second…
Serendipitously, Björn’s optional prompt on this occasion was the writing of letters and the idea of the POPoFest, is to write Epistolary poems to the recipient that reference the image on the postcard, to write spontaneously without editing. I chose to reclaim my painting skills this year and sent 31 original paintings out, one of which is shown below…
You have done it on your own the craft of poetry garnering your words identifying your voice never mixing metaphors unless you mean to accenting with alliteration tackling subjects from waxing lyrical about nature to sounding the clarion calls to activism in a world gone mad…
Now, why not try the delights of collaboration… a dance á deux a menage á trois an orgy of poesie with multiple poets if you will bat stanzas back and forth ekphrast a painting or photograph by a friend why do it on your own when you can do it together become a collaborator…
Ten months ago, our very own Melissa Lemay, started an online journal of collaborative poetry, Collaborature so why not head over there and have a gander at all the exciting poems that have been submitted and then reach out to another poet to have a go at collaboration…
