It's been a while since I posted on here and, even then, I was mostly posting drafts of poems, most of which have gone through several rewrites since. Plus, hardly anyone reads this blog so, mostly, I don't bother.
What's new since I last wrote about my life or experiences? I have retired, had two hip replacements and both my parents have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which is heartbreaking and occasionally hilarious but mostly it's depressing watching their faculties deteriorate. Both are in homes. My son has changed careers and is enjoying being a classroom assistant. My husband enjoys looking after the garden and suffers with various aches and pains but still climbs the ladder to hang the bird seeds and coconuts high up in the elder tree. I knit easy things in pleasing colours and do my best to do some exercise. Nothing very exciting. Just an ordinary life. I go to a writing group now. Sometimes, I perform my poetry at open mike events.
Autumn is underway and the nights are getting shorter. I feel the effect of this as an inward motion, a slowing, a darkening as I go through the annual inner adjustment to prepare for winter both within my body and inside my head. It’s not that I dislike autumn and winter; I simply undergo a change and resistance is futile but it's a bit of a proccess all the same.
In memory of summer, this is a haiku, shaped from some lines I wrote in June, when I was feeling cherished by the sun, despite hobbling around on crutches at that time.
Elder
After the shower
leaves shine. A thousand diamonds
under a warm sun.
Perhaps I should write a haiku about October? October with its weakening sun, decaying leaves and rotting matter, allowing the natural world around me to act as a part metaphor for my parents' minds, safe in the knowledge that the summer is scheduled to return, unlike their reason. As the writer/s of Ecclesiastes knew, the earth keeps turning and renewing itself, or it should do if we manage not cock it all up.
There are lots of archaeological programmes on TV, which posit the question of why ancient people erected stone circles and other monuments. Maybe it’s enough to recognise that they were completely wedded to the seasons, in awe of time, of life and death, understood the inevitability of aging and had a need for blessings. In often harsh reality of life, they wanted to acknowledge and celebrate ‘something’ before they had reachd the stage of developing the language skills to write and read ‘holy’, wise or uplifting texts. Not so different from us really.
