14th July 2016
Write On The Beach
A fabulous two hours this morning at
Write On The Beach workshop,
Sitting on fold up chairs, cushions
Or, for one, an arm chair
Borrowed from a salubrious living room,
Sun warming our faces
Wind cooling our backs
Nine gathered in front of
Beach Hut 136
A blue beacon of creativity
Nestled quietly among more
Ordinary neighbours.
With waves rhythmically keeping time
Mysterious - moon drift
We read poems of the beach,
Write from prompts,
Share our hastily penned words.
Pebbles, warm underfoot, listen,
Listen, to our scratchy scrawlings,
Our spoken efforts
Sometimes stolen by brazon breeze.
In just a breath, juices flowing now
Time is up.
But inspiration as plentiful as
The waters before us
Is ours to take away
Reluctantly we go our separate ways
Fresh material within us .
And some words that i played with at the workshop:
Dip Your Toe In
Dip your toe in,
Yes, that's right, it's cold, it's icy,
But, you can stand it.
Go on now, Go a bit further, try
Your foot maybe?
Colder still? Uncomfortable - for sure,
But you'll see
Persevere, stay with it, what do you find?
Ahh, gone numb eh?
No feeling?
Might as well take the plunge,
Jump right in .
You know you'll be ok.
And now you scream out.
It's too much pain,
It's taking too long,
But you, you carry on,
You stay with it.
You , finally , get your reward
You, you are swimming
Totally immersed , one with the water.
It was worth it - suffering forgotten,
Waves wash away it's echo
The sun shining on you
The warmth of this moment precious.
The prompt for the next one is the quote: " Water: no matter how much, there is still not enough".
At each new dawn Nadia walks with her mother,
Before the sun has time to scorch their bones
Through narrow rugged paths,
Pebbles piercing sores into dusty feet,
They carry pitchers on their heads
On their way to get water for the day ahead.
They don't speak
The task is important , urgent.
Sometimes , if they finish early enough
And the day is cool
They will go out again
Take a different road and
End up by the sea.
This time the pebbles are welcoming
They creep across them to
Sooth their sores in the cool water.
This time the water is more than enough to
Bring a smile to their brown burnt faces.
Nadia splashes her mother and
For a few moments they
Forget that , no matter how much there is,
There is still never enough.
Their skin glistens a fresh beginning,
And tomorrow they will go again
To the still, small, stream,
And the day after that
And the day after that
But , just once in a while
They get to smile.
Here is a picture of our statue of Mary taken through the lavender that I grew from tiny shoots and brought with me from the other house. I have four healthy plants out of the many( probably more than a hundred) that I started off at the end of the summer before last. I'm extremely proud of them. We sit here on these warn sunny mornings and do half an hour of meditative prayer. The bees come and work on the lavender, and sometimes some butterflies. It's a restful start to the day. A pot of tea is placed before us which we enjoy very much . 
