Daisies

Donaghadee and the daisies that I picked as a child at Ballyferris to bring back to the caravan for mum.

You're still my favourite.

The Lookout Aldeburgh

It's always a highlight seeing the art and installation at The Lookout on the beach in Aldeburgh.

 You can see the spiral stairs leading up to the tower room at the top on the post 2nd November... where each year Caroline Wiseman puts on another work combining artist and poet.

This year the art is by Issam Kourbaj. The poetry by Ruth Padel.

The combined work is called ...

Dark Water, Burning World, 80 Moons and Counting.

To mark the sixth anniversary of the uprising in Syria, poet, classicist and Hellenophile Ruth Padel, joins artist Issam Kourbaj, to present an intervention that explores the millennia-long relations between the Near East and ancient Greece. At this event, Kourbaj will launch Dark Water, Burning World - a new artwork inspired by 5th century BC Syrian vessels on display in Gallery 21; and Padel will read a new poem Lesbos 2015 - influenced by her meetings on the island of Lesbos, both with the inhabitants and with some of the thousands of Syrians who have fled there.

So you reach the top and look in and are confronted by the boats full of burnt out matches and the clear Irish voice of Ruth Padel reading her poems influenced by her visits to Lesbos and the influx of so many broken lives.

The boats cover the floor of the upper room and fill the old wooden window frames. 

While we were there we noticed a family on the beach playing as families do...with dogs and children running and laughing...

...and in the icy cold waters of the North Sea a lone swimmer can just be made out fighting the waves.

Two worlds.

The Work can be viewed at The Fitzwilliam Gallery and The V and A as well.

Art Challenge...post one a day!

Today I've posted an edited photo taken as part of a series when we went to find Derek Jarman's cottage on the shingle in Dungeness.

"The Abandoned Boat"

What an amazing place...a wilderness of stone and sea...yet full of life with such banks of marine wild flowers and a glimpse of a hare running away from his cottage.

I may never get a chance to return...but the memories are strong and quite a bit of poetry resulted from that visit.

"The Abandoned Boat"

Wild flowers on the shingle.

 The emptiness of the landscape.

Rusting metal everywhere hidden in the maran grasses.

Sculptural rusting metals...abandoned.

Sunday's Short Story.

I know it's Monday...but we left the house on the Bay...Sunday evening, and scudded down the old M6 to catch The Durrell's on the box...so no time to post as we cope very nicely without WiFi in the Bay house.

(...an aside...
...the bay sunset, which is renowned anyway, was especially beautiful on Saturday because of the stormy weather....I just had to run out and catch the end of it before the sun went down.)

Prompt

The prompt from Pat F.on Thursday at The Writer's Workshop was a challenge. Not that it isn't always a challenge for me...but this one stumped me for a while. But the only thing to do in that situation is to go with the first idea that comes .. and run with it. We only have a bit over an hour to write before we read the results to each other....so here it is...

Albert was not yet ready to share his age with Ivy. She had been told that his birthday was coming up, But as his secretary she needed to be careful about broadcasting it around the office. After all Albert was the boss.The company had been good to her. Life was difficult enough since Syd died. She was still coming to terms with an empty house every evening.Ivy felt angry about it all although she knew that his family had a history of heart attacks. Nevertheless, being who she was, one who copes, it was just a few weeks after Syd's funeral that she determined to get herself a job, and get back into a daily routine.To have Albert as her boss was more that she had dared to hope for.She did have a lot of experience noted down on her c.v. But with so many people applying for so few positions, she realised that in this she had fallen on her feet.....or to be more precise...on the office chair!

Her office wall abutted Albert's office wall. And regularly she would either be in his room taking notes or receiving lists of jobs to be achieved, Or Albert would breeze into her office. No knock of course, just striding in and sitting on the edge of her desk with a file or USB to peruse But recently often it had often been with a mug of coffee at the start of the business day. That was quite a thing! In her last job she had always been expected to be both office worker and tea girl for the whole  floor. 

He was no Adonis, Albert P. Shingle. Sometimes when she thought about it she had a giggle over the name...Shingle! Was it an illness or a beach? She preferred to think it was a beach.And what did the P stand for if anything? Some people put a middle letter into their signature to make it more memorable. Of course it might just be Peter or Paul or maybe Phillip. But she liked to think it was exotic...maybe Peregrine to counteract the blandness of Albert.! Oh dear as the months had gone by that she was thinking more and more about his life outside of the office, And today she knew that he would celebrate his fiftieth. Surely it couldn't pass by unmentioned?

Someone elsewhere in the company must be planning a surprise. No word of this forthcoming...at least none that she had heard of. Her job was precious. She loved the work. She was good at it she discovered. Better than she ever imagined she would be She would let the day pass by.

Every day Ivy made sure that all she did and even what she wore was as professional and efficient as she could make it. She was taking much more thought over her appearance than she had done for many years. Was that her being professional, or did she feel at forty three she still had a lot of living ahead of her? With no children from her marriage to care for life was starting anew .So there would be no way she was going to throw a spanner in the works and step forward now to plan something for Albert's birthday.

But there were little things she could do without making an issue of it. She put a bunch of spring flowers in a pretty jug on the side of the desk - not too ostentatious just enough to sweeten the often stale office air. She bought a packet of triple chocolate biscuits to offer when he arrived  with her coffee. She wore a new blouse she had bought at the weekend. Still a crisp white cotton but with a little pie crust collar on it. And in these small ways she hoped her boss would know that she recognized both the day and also the position she held in the company.

At nine fifteen as usual Albert stepped into her office. Coffee in hand, he smiled. She offered him a cookie. He took one and hesitated. 

"It's my birthday Ivy. I was wondering if you would join me this evening for dinner? I've taken a chance that you might say yes and booked a table at a local restaurant...what do you say?"

The flowers bloomed and shared their perfume in the room, out through the door and into the rest of the building!

Oh dear...cheesy end...but what to do when Pat says.."Five more minutes and then we shall read!"

Well you bring it all to conclusion...and who doesn't love a happy ending anyway!!

By the way you could see more of my pics on my Instagram site...if you were of such a mind!!

geraldinesnape...documenting the mundane

A Poem for Thursday.

A Poem for Thursday

Today at the writers' workshop the prompt was from Shauna. She gave each of us some pages with interesting lists, to make us think about our lives and the people associated with us at various stages of it.

Time Line..............I choose 10 - 15. ...it was the 50s, it was Co Down, and all was well in my world.

Before the Fall

Time was endless, friends were many.

Vicky and Sandy, and I was Gerry.

We laughed a lot, linked arms and talked

About boys we fancied and those we stalked.

A caravan was where we gathered 

Under the stars at Ballyferris

Our bare feet kicking the silver sand.

Where time was endless, nothing planned.

"There's  Cassiopeia and there's the Plough".

"Oh your luck's in, there's a shooting star!"

We raced down maran covered dunes

And harmonised on Western tunes.

And miles away on the far horizon

Were ships bound for ports in the land of England.

We seldom thought of our futures then,

But time and tide don't wait for man.

They pass unseen and never waver

Then gather up all in their net without favour.

And I daren't go back to that holy place

Where time stood still. A time when space

And mercy was real, before the fall

That enveloped and overwhelmed us all.

The Story of Ballyferris....Chapter Eight...The Beach

The Beach

The name... Ballyferris...  is enough to set me off on a sweet daydream.

Growing up in the suburbs of Belfast city... life lived by the Co. Down coast meant freedom.

 The flat landscape, the open skies, the ever present blue-grey Irish Sea, became a raison d'etre for living ...yes I think it's not going too far so say that this became a truth for me .....and the main reason for this obsession was definitely the beach.

 Nowadays, with cheap air travel we  have a greater knowledge of beautiful expanses of golden sand and turquoise sea, from Portrush to Portugal, India and beyond..at least on the internet!!

But nothing can compare with early memories, and mine are of the beach at Ballyferris.

 Waking up to the smell of an Irish fry, bacon,eggs, mushrooms and toast. Knowing that a whole day and the exploration of the beach was ahead of me. No homework, no responsibilities,this was tantamount to heaven. I didn’t analyse it then, and it’s taken me a lifetime to work out even a little of why I loved it so much.

Come with me, as we walk over the little grassy ridge at the coast edge of the field.  Come down to the beach, there you will find yourself treading the worn path that many have taken before. Around you, the smell of  beach daisies.... a type of camomile. My love for these innocent flowers  has stayed with me since.( I even wrote a song about them once... “I love the flowers, I love the trees, but most of all I love daises.” ...not exactly  Larkin or Heaney!...)

When I walk on other beaches, Morecambe, Southwold, Portrush or Brighton... I strip some seeds from the abundance of the seedheads, to drop on coastal areas bare of daisies.

 Rarely did I return to the caravan without a bunch of these flowers for mum.

So, on past the daisy strip, which by the way could take any thing up to an hour, on down the beach, heading to the sea.

If the tide was out , I squelched my way over a mound of sticky brown seaweed, treading lightly in my bare feet, for fear of some squirming creature having been caught there, left by the receding tide. The hard sand was cold beneath my feet.Truth is it was very cold, and this was probably why my patient mum always shouted after me to put on wellington boots ...as I ran off from the caravan. Clothes for Ballyferris were basic.... a t-shirt or at the most a felted woolly jumper, a pair of cotton shorts and bare feet. I’m convinced,  this is one of the reasons why I still have fairly healthy... if rather large feet! Reach the water and take a tentative dabble at the edge with toes in, before running  back up the beach to warmer sand.

At the end of the summer the sand at the top of the beach had dried up in the sun and shone like silver dust. It was very fine and a joy to scrunch under your feet until they were covered by the earthy warmth.

This poem below was on a post by Anthony Wilson ...writer , poet and blogger...

and reminded me of that girl and the freedom she had in those days...

Who?

Who is that child I see wandering, wandering
down by the side of the quivering stream?
Why does she seem not to hear, though I call to her?
Where does she come from, and what is her name?

Why do I see her at sunrise and sunset
taking, in old-fashioned clothes, the same track?
Why, when she walks, does she cast not a shadow
though the sun rises and falls at her back?

Why does the dust lie so thick on the hedgerow
by the great field where a horse pulls the plough?
Why do I see only meadows, where houses
stand in a line by the waterside now?

Why does she move like a wraith by the water,
soft as the thistledown on the breeze blown?
When I draw near her so that I may hear her,
why does she say that her name is my own?

Charles Causley, from The Collected Poems for Children  

A Poem for Thursday...."The End of the Line"

With so much relayed over the media and the papers full of the sad stories of flooded homes and broken journeys...I'm putting up this post as a memory of another sea...another train journey...another ending...though for how long none of us can be sure any longer.

The End Of The Line

Let's go live at the end of the line
Where breakers fall over rolling stones.
We'll ride the train that we rode when young,
Watch how the steam mists our view of the sea
As it hisses and cools on the iron, on the brass.
And the cry of the gulls as they dive, as they soar
Will welcome us back
Will welcome us back.

Let's board the train that we rode long ago.
Where the end of the line will have water and sand.
We'll be welcomed again by the mewing of gulls
By the smell of spun sugar and hot lardy chips.
And there, will be space enough for our thoughts
With salt winds to blow away stale urban fog.
To welcome us back
To welcome us back.

They're saying the crust is beginning to crack.
That the cold winds of change are blowing our way.
Yet, when I take  the journey again to the end
Of the line, where the seagulls are soaring above,
To the edge of the tide, to the line in the sand...
The memory of all things, of all being well
Embraces me back
Embraces me back.

Restore my Soul...

I have needed my soul and emotional equilibrium restored recently....and today another blow came with a first class letter from the hospital....
I am actually amazed at how much we can take...and perhaps it's as we build on the past and realise we are still here that it happens.
I listened to the wonderful interview with Simon Armitage and Seamus Heaney last week...Heaney said that his work was built on the foundations of those poets who have gone before ...or words to that effect...

Being up at the Bay in the storm...you couldn't help but think back to Masefield's wonderful sea poem...
..."I must go down to the sea again,
to the lonely sea and the sky"....

So although I wrote this before I listened to Seamus Heaney.......Masefield's poem was deep inside me.

The sea ,the sea,

The roiling sea.

I must go down 

To sate my need.

My need , my need,

To sate my need.

For elemental 

Wind and water.

The wind, the wind,

The sucking wind.

Within my soul

It succours me.

My soul, my soul

That succours me.

Come claim me back

Come wind, come sea.

This is one for dVerse today.http://dversepoets.com/2013/02/05/openlinknight-week-82/#comment-29436http://dversepoets.com/2013/02/05/openlinknight-week-82/#comment-29436..I'm almost last in the pub...but just made it.

I'm adding Poetry Jam on the bottom of this post...just found a super poem on twitter

A Poem for Thursday

The Sea and Life

You have to learn

   to time the waves.

Then jump

   at just the right moments

     to avoid being dragged under.

I found it difficult

   at first.

Then a rhythm emerged

   was it every seventh wave?

In between

   went swimmingly.

It has taken me

   a lifetime

      to time life's waves.

They say

   it comes in threes.

Why is there always

   a number?

Did someone

  work out the world

     in a maths lesson?

I'm hoping that this one will be acceptable to The Mag: Mag124...it definitely to do with water and the hope that I don't drown! Oh and a great prompt in the redon..I've always loved his dreamy work. Thankyou.

A Poem for Thursday.

The Outing to Dungeness

Prospect Cottage

Basically it was just a hut
A fisherman’s hut
Along with all the other huts
Now I love a hut
I would like a hut by the sea
Not too much to keep tidy
And the sound and smell of it all…


Basically it was not really a garden
Just the way you collect bits of plants along the beach
And hope that they might take root
And help you to remember that day
By the sea on the beach
In the shingle…

Really it was not sculpture
Not what those earnest artists
Like Andy or the Welsh man would think of as sculpture
More like me when I walked the sands at Ballyferris
And picked up the rubbish that the others had dropped
Well I say the rubbish
I never actually thought of it that way…


Really I wasn’t too sure about the yellow windows
And the writing on the end wall
All about the sun
Though the mist obscured it that day
And the words were a bit small
Now that my eyesight is not what it was…


So what made me cry?
For it was only a fisherman’s hut
It was only the shingle all around it by the road
It was only railway sleepers upended
Standing like a modern Stonehenge
And the perfume of the gorse
And the yellow horned poppies…

No really …there was not much there you know.


[This was the day that we went looking for Derek Jarman's house on the shingle in that magic spot called Dungeness. The brochure say the largest area of shingle in Europe. Full of wild sea flowers, protected by the local authorities....mysteriously beautiful.]

Woody Guthrie...The Man in the Sand.

Go down to the water where the oil floats by

And drop your head down and cry

And write with your finger in the sand

And mail it out with the tide

Mail it out with the high and the low

And watch the marks on the sand

And listen to the fog on the homeless waves

And feel the salt sea in your hand.

Smell the sea wind - taste on your lips

That foam that rolls over my lost ships

And write your letter once more in the sand

Where the breaker dips and the undertow slips

And when nobody's looking - kiss your hand

And touch to the nose of your man in the sand

And then lay down with your head on his chest

And be nice to your man in the sand.

I'm just a sucker for the sea and poetry... and it's got them together in bundles here..

The End of The Line

I'm reposting this poem for dVerse Open link night week 41.

It's one that I like reading myself...if that's not too arrogant!

Also it takes me to a place that I love to go...the seaside!

I'm really only just getting into linking to all of these wonderful sites.

So a big thankyou to dVerse for the opportunity to get my stuff...out there!

The End of the Line

Let’s go and live at the end of the line.
Where breakers fall over rolling stones.
We’ll board the train that we rode when young,
Watch how the steam mists our view of the sea
As it hisses and cools on the iron and the brass.
And the cry of the gulls as they dive, as they soar
Will welcome us back
Will welcome us back.

Let’s board the train that we rode long ago,
Where the end of the line will have water and sand.
We’ll be welcomed again by the crying of gulls
The smell of spun sugar and hot lardy chips.
There, will be space enough for our thoughts
And salt winds that blow away stale urban fog.
To welcome us back,
To welcome us back.

They say that the crust is beginning to crack.
That the cold winds of change are blowing our way.
Yet when I take the journey again to the end
Of the line, where the seagulls are soaring above
To the edge of the tide, to the line in the sand.
The memory of all of things, of all being well
Embraces me back
Embraces me back.

Beloved Poem

Walt Whitman

Song of Myself

You sea! I resign myself to you
Also - I guess what you mean.
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back
Without feeling of me,
We must have a turn together,
I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land,
Cushion me soft,
Rock me in billowing drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet,
I can repay you.


Photo taken on a Suffolk beach.

(Not one of my own poems!...I wish...but I love this .)

A Poem for Thursday.

The End of the Line

Let’s go and live at the end of the line.
Where breakers fall over rolling stones.
We’ll board the train that we rode when young,
Watch how the steam mists our view of the sea
As it hisses and cools on the iron and the brass.
And the cry of the gulls as they dive, as they soar
Will welcome us back
Will welcome us back.

Let’s board the train that we rode long ago,
Where the end of the line will have water and sand.
We’ll be welcomed again by the crying of gulls
The smell of spun sugar and hot lardy chips.
There, will be space enough for our thoughts
And salt winds that blow away stale urban fog.
To welcome us back,
To welcome us back.

They say that the crust is beginning to crack.
That the cold winds of change are blowing our way.
Yet when I take the journey again to the end
Of the line, where the seagulls are soaring above
To the edge of the tide, to the line in the sand.
The memory of all of things, of all being well
Embraces me back
Embraces me back.

 
This one has been linked to the gooseberry garden random poems week 17 ..."nostalgia"

A Poem for Thursday.

Not Getting Wet

The wet dress
warm sand running through her fingers
tiny shells
unprecious stones.

No point in being
by the sea and
not getting wet.

A Poem for Thursday.

journeying



Whether Greek or Roman

Portuguese or Arabian,

the sea

and it's endless roaring

is the history

of Moors and Phoenicians

Africans and Indians.

Forever coming

forever going.

Through war

and peace

sudden storm and unearthly calm.

Of Noah and Columbus

Vasco da Gama and the Vikings.

All journeyers

and all travellers

moving ever outward.

God must love water very much.

He made so much of it

and in such wonderful places in the world.

Today

a wind is in from Africa

turning the blue

into splashes of white.

Seething and playing catch up

on this ancient sea.