The Last of the Roses

It's cold today and the north wind is making it feel even colder.

The potter has lit the fire in the front room with the ash logs he bought from  our young neighbour.. They burn slowly and burn with a steady heat and there are no sparks flying from them.

I'm always glad of that.

I'm wrapped up in my Donegal mohair rug to write this at the P.C.

I find it very hard to steel myself each year as I help my sister (@rosiemcclellandart) with her Donegal workshop in the summer. That's because I would buy a handwoven rug every year if I could ...they are so delicious.  Can I really call a mohair rug ...delicious?...I just have.

This post is really about the cold wind today...I've been sidetracked...

We have two standard rose bushes in the small front gardens. One either side of the door.

They've been there for thirty years or more and always surprise me with the abundance of pretty little pink roses.

I suppose I bought them in memory of my dad. I loved his garden and especially loved the roses he planted there.

But today the wind threatens to finish them off by blowing the last few petals from the trees.

So a little pic to remember... when the dark days really arrive this winter.

For one thing is certain.

Winter is coming.

A Poem for Thursday....Beyond Silence (with many thanks to S. Heaney)

Is it the rhythm of the wheels on the motorway surface or the rapidly changing landscape that stimulates my mind so much when we take long road trips. The radio is on...sharply relaxed in the seat by the potter...watching out for fools on the road. They love roads do fools...learnt that by my father's side as he taught me to drive in my teenage years.

Beyond Silence
Something beautiful happened
On our way down the M6
England's main blood line.
A great flock of starlings
and a murmuration! While
Snow spat down on us and 
The wind struck hard as iron.
Leaving us with only
A holy heavy silence.

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