Whispers and Wanderings

A purple bruise spreads across the sky, which had earlier shimmered blue in the warmth of the morning. A storm is brewing and Georgia watches as the leaves at the top of trees shiver in the wind. She hears the creak of the fence as it gently sways to and fro, and feels a splash of rain hit her bare shoulder. A trail of water makes a rivulet down her arm, but she does not move from her seat at the garden table. Distracted by movement, she turns her gaze to the bird table and watches as two visiting blackbirds help themselves to what remains of the seed placed there earlier in the day.  On the fence, Reggie, the local ginger tom. is also watching them closely, probably waiting for his chance to pounce.  Briefly, the sky is filled with a silver light, which is followed almost instantly, by a rumble of thunder. In a flash, Reggie leaps from the fence and, startled by the sudden movement, the blackbirds take flight, leaving Georgia alone with her thoughts. In pensive mood, she chew...

How a Faraway Tree, a Greendale bus, and a bathroom covered in talcum powder helped to shape a poem. I wrote the poem that follows this introduction, some time in the mid to late 1990s. My children were small and life was chaotic!  Days were full of school runs, after school activities, messy bedrooms, giggles and tantrums. Perhaps it wasn’t a perfect childhood - neither theirs nor mine, growing up in the 1970s - but it did have its share of wonder and of magic.  As a young girl, I lost myself in the books of Enid Blyton.  Stories such as "Come to the Fair", "The Magic Wishing Chair" and "The Faraway Tree with its ever-changing lands at the top were an escape into my imagination. Twenty-something years later, I shared these same books with my own children and watched as they created lands of their own, some borrowed from books, some created from their own imagination.  I remember finding Martin, (about 2 years old) covered in white powder. Having recreated the ...

I've been trying to write something for my creative writing group tomorrow. It’s been a manic month - work, life, or just plain procrastination means that I haven't written a single word, nor do I have any idea of what to write. The prompt is 500 words “On Awakening”, which sounds deep, but I’m torn between whether my piece should be a dream, something philosophical or introspective. In a desperate bid for inspiration (and sanity), I rifled through my old writing and found a piece from February 2019. It's tempting to tweak and recycle it... but that would be cheating. Wouldn't it?  Update ... inspiration came to me in the early hours of this morning and I have been able to add a couple of hundred words so that I take an updated version tonight. :-) IN THE WIND  Woken up in the early hours of a cold winter morning, she lay in the darkness listening to the song of storm Eric as he wound his angry way between the buildings, whirling and wailing like an angry banshee lookin...

Introduction to Introspection This poem came to me in the stillness of an early March morning in 2019. We have all experienced those long, sleepless hours when your internal voice is loudest and, in the pitch black and silence of the bedroom, a peaceful night of unbroken sleep is impossible. In the wake of a 26-year marriage ending, I found myself questioning my decision and my past actions, remembering who I once was, and wondering who I would become. Yet as the darkness began to fade, and light began to filter in through the window of my rented flat, so too did a shift in my perspective. Introspection traces the journey from my quiet unrest to the simple, surprising realisation of a new dawn. INTROSPECTION  Why am I awake at three am? Looking through the darkness, searching through the silence, for signs I'm not alone, Listening to the bad thoughts,  as they jostle out the good thoughts in my mind. Why am I awake at four o'clock? Contemplating friendships, musing on mis-j...