Trees

"When you hug a tree, a tree never refuses. You can rely on a tree. It is dependable. Every time you want to see it, every time you need its shade, it is there for you."

from "A Pebble for Your Pocket" by Thich Nhat Hanh

Trigger:-
Mousetrap
Scrabble
Day unravelled
Dot Dot Dot

Fuse burning
Dynamite
Explosion
Under water
Tidal wave of
Emotion
Rage
Crashing through the kitchen
All Hope washed away

Not a game of
Risk
Not a game of
Life

Awareness regained
Dragged to the surface all
Puffy and waterlogged
Two hugs, one kiss of life
Be here, now
Keep going.

"Catch a wave you'll be sitting on top of the world"

I am having a massive surge of creativity, new ideas and new understanding at the moment which is like being caught on a wave and taken on a journey.

I wish I had more time to explore all this and do it justice. I feel like I am either letting the wave take me, or flailing around in the water, or desperately trying to keep up but only able to doggy-paddle frantically.

I am making more choices about how I use my time and more decisions about which direction to go in.

I need to be more disciplined. I know of old that I am inclined to try and keep up until I burn out; get distracted by what someone else is doing or dither until the moment has passed me by.

As the end of October approaches it is time to think hard about which steps to take on the path and at what point I need to stand still and let some of it pass me by.

Tortoise not hare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtBZSIrmgiU

Frank O'Hara: Why I Am Not a Painter

Last thursday was National Poetry Day. Anyone who has happened upon this blog will have read some of my poetry and I continue to write poetry on a daily basis. I am also studying a poetry module "Poetry Now" at uni.

I sat in the cafe of a local garden centre last week doing some homework, reading Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney poems. I flicked though the vast anthology which is the core text for this module and a poem by Frank O'Hara called "Why I Am Not a Painter", which you can read here, caught my eye. It resonated strongly with me - it explains what I cannot. Why I am not a painter.

I have always painted and stopped and started again. It was my earliest wish to be a fine artist. I did a lot of painting in the couple of years before my marriage broke up, and for nearly a year after. When I fell pregnant with Sam I stopped. I have daubed and dabbled a bit since but not had much time. But I have always found time to write. And the more I write the more I write. I am more poet than painter but a bit painter too and that seems, finally, to sit very well with me.

Out of sight

It stretches in all directions and
I am in the middle again
But digging deep

The crossroads has buried treasure
And this time I am staying here
To find it, finally.

Then I will know which path to take
Home.