8/3/2021 Ritual / Snowdrop Time in Sussex

 

Another week commences...

It's a no run morning. It's the early ritual of sitting, watching the back garden, drinking a tea whilst reading a chapter (of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer), before moving on to coffee. It's pausing to see what birds visit the ash tree. Magpie, pigeon, robin, bluetit, goldfinch. It's hoping the sun shows up today. It's meditating, then making a tea for Lisa and taking it in.

I look forward to warmer times when I can sit outside at the front and see the sun come up over the city. 

I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to resuming life, whatever that means. I'm not that guy who can't wait to get back to how things were. I'm actually OK with this, to be honest. The odd trip to see friends, get to the sea, the occasional dinner with people. I'm that guy. I'm getting comfortable with the slow life. Besides, I have a lot of books to read and things to try and write. Don't make me go out there. I've waited a long time for this quiet, tiny house. Just keep delivering the coffee and the veg box...

I've been reading a lot of online poetry magazines this week. A lot go through me like neutrinos. Some are exciting, some irritating. They have short biographies of the authors. I wrote this one about myself in my notebook:

W___ F___ is not a painter or a public speaker and shows only mild practical proficiency. His first and only language is English. His writing appears internally before taking digital and physical form. He does not live in London.

The two things I like most that I have written recently are both found poems. This means I didn't really write them but have re-presented them in a different form and context. It's OK if you 'fess up where you found it. You could call it cheating but you can also intellectualise it into a writing form, which is what I think I'll do:

Snowdrop Time in Sussex

 

It is early in the year,

a mild day in February,

and the moist green earth 

is starred with the delicate bloom

of the snowdrop.

 

A typical village woman 

of Easebourne 

(used to much stooping in the fields)

begins her collection 

of flowers for market.

 

 

[Found in ‘The British Countryside in Pictures’ Odhams Press, London, 1948]