work in progress [isn't it always?]

trees winter lace edge the land.

sharp thoughts of the unpeace
unwillingness to negotiate, forever binary.
I lose faith.

feathered voles and tails of wrens
deep under the spit on the inside of my wrist
a wish for rolling clouds, black bellied, rent

splat
onto into
mud
uncover the bones
stark
white
smooth as the inside of my wrist

slice under the curtain brief winter light.
shatter in my eyes.
shard through blood to heart:
I will not hear the unpeace makers with such distaste.
salt sweet

but give me chicory, feverfew
tongue turning bitter
tone of voice shaped by muscles in my throat

the lump in my throat
whose words stick stop?
My words stuck?
Or
I cannot swallow their tale?

tail of wren, winter bird, bloodied,
found land to the west facing east where lies the edge
of man, ire and whale – tipteerers all

find the cure or is it death?
just three stones later, that is no olive branch.
a martyr’s palm more like

mark my skin where the mud lies dinted.
they think they cannot lose face but they are skewed
they need to throw the towel in
not that there is enough land to allow the walk away
I talk away but still it is lodged a stuck laugh choke
I think it works both ways doesn’t work both ways
slick sticky mud stuck
suck my wellieboot
I am sunk in my socks

listen at the blackbird sing.
Some days I am so tired I can hardly think [there is usually one of two reasons - occasionally combined - for this] yet I try to think to do - perhaps I shouldn't. It does make me wonder how I can survive in the Real World, even if I can get through this piece of studying. What happened to the fit, healthy young girl? [ok not entirely fit and healthy, but at least mostly it seemed that way].

All green expansion outside, cow parsley frothing high, just the ash to fully expand. The dawn chorus is no longer the dense wall that it was - a change in just a few days. Still no swifts. I have heard of sightings of swifts and have seen them in Somerset and Brittany. But not here. To hear the scream to see the soaring freedom, just briefly the possibility.

Sun shines between cumulous clouds. Sky sky sky to fly in. Brisk breeze to lift the feathers of the wings. Breath.

summer solstice

oh no and now we are tipping back to winter, to darkness. I wanted to "get myself together" by this topping point. failed, oh dear and so what to do. hear the ticktick of the birds, less song...soon soon that little ribbon of winter the robin with changed song will sound. he sneaks into July and brings a chill. inelegant manoeuvres of a middle aged woman in a flowery frock. And producing and showing ridiculous art...on home territory too - will I regret it? regret out of step ridiculous so much regret. orange sun sinks on me. girl girl insidescreams out at the hell of lost things and aging and lonliness. the child says the aloneness was ok then because later later there would be less but there wasn't. the time watching listening smelling touching drifting was possible because all the time in the world..and all the promise of a future. child blames woman. let down.
go to bed in clean sheets beside old ragged falling falling apart Bear. will Bear be allowed in the old people's home? the hospital? are old ladies allowed to have equally old Bears with them?

this world - a road to nowhere

This world all too much; too hard, too sad. Outside two fragile chirupping blackbirds make their way into life, fumbling in bushes. Every time I hear their sweet sound I remember the sound of the one that was caught by the cat across the road...the same noise but louder more urgent...more shrill; then the parents alarm calls at the cat for some two hours.

I can't deal with myself very well, my anger, my sadness...my guilt at feeling sad when I have food, a roof over my head, parents. There is a feeling of dullness falling, resignation...hard to describe. Accept the futility, the loneliness. But then all the wretchedness in the world, the corruption. Government millionaire ministers that talk of getting people off benefit into jobs that don't exist, being hard on crime whilst women are brought into this country illegally for the sex trade and when they have the courage to go to the police get treated as criminals, illegal immigrants. Some come here so young. What sort of a country, world, do I live in? A country where people still hide that they are gay, where people of a different colour/religion are hated and feared. then there are those that think we are on the brink of a new consciousness, such a wild idea, like apocalyptic theories, I think all part of the human condition and and the desperate struggle with mortality.

Tomorrow I'll try and make something of the day...go looking for bee orchids, if my legs and back allow.
But right now I just feel like waiting with the swifts and when they fly in late July, early August, just stepping into the sea and swimming south south south. Oh the ridiculous state of being too scared to live to scared to die..no maybe not having much will to live, to live with joy. I just get bad tempered and angry with everyone. A close friend says well have you found somewhere to live in Bristol, when I haven't even sorted out if I can go. How would I find somewhere to rent now when I'll not go til the end of September? Do I spend money going to MA shows in July or save it to pay fees? How will I afford a computer? Could I do it without one?

Shall I go and see the sun set? shall I go to bed? Can't have a bath as nothing comes out of the hot water taps and the plumber has not returned in a week. I don't have to be here, but I need my space. My space to feel sad or cross. There is whole bottle of sparkling wine in the fridge... There's some tea in the pot. How perverse I am, sitting in a cold room on a sunny evening - although the clear sky is causing the temperature to drop.

Ah - a sigh for a warm sea to float in, for salt water to hold me to touch me, to feel my edges but feel contained and held.

ordinary and not

I have seen so few swifts - hope to see more in the city...but a lack. Then I cross the Taf and see perhaps a hundred or more over the river, both ways, high, low...a couple come low over my head - I hear them but the traffic drowns most of their sound. Also ducks, gulls and a cormorant.

This morning a breakfast that I really enjoyed - oat millet flakes, cashews, sunflower seeds and blueberries with soya & oatly milk cocktail. Not sure why it was so good...but it was. Concentrate on small things. And just watching the world.

hot

the estuary roses are coming out. the bees have buzzing frenzies inside.

it is too hot for me today, I stay indoors mostly.

It will be a day when I know that I am in the public eye - I wish to veil my face. Unhappiness/dissatisfaction with body is so stupid so difficult. Besides the weight gain I now have little thread veins and often tiny spots - they are nearly invisible - on my left cheek. The thread veins are not going to go away. and two red scar type marks on the right side of my face. I don't think even Dr. Hauscha can help despite those promising (dispiriting) words I found two years back

will I just find misery in everything? I listen to the Dalai llama talking of honesty, truthfulness, transparency. Of accepting what is; if it really is that bad what's the point of worrying?

Today will be what it will be and I would like to have the goal of acceptance, but should I have a goal at all?

I had a wish this morning....but it's pointless, it doesn't make me feel any better.

willow - not the pussy/puppy willow fluffs and floats, baby blackbirds in a woodpile and in a huge huge rose bush, chirrup and suggest that they are maybe ready for the big world.

The grass has grown so fast.

blossom

The joy of the sun coming out. And of seeing an apple tree thickly covered...but as I scampered to smell the blossom and take some photos my heart did a plummet...in moments like this I want to be someone there to share it with me. The wild, wild wind rushing a sand storm over the beach, the raw exhilerating wind from the rough white waves. The sharp blue sky. Oh and the sparkle, sparkle of the water on the sand rippling in the breeze, patterning in the sun. The new spring grass, waving all glossy, below sleek shiny rooks facing the wind out, taking turns at hanging in the turbulent air.

season to season

I listened to Jung talking about death. he said something about not looking back otherwise you became old before your time, dry, died before your time and that one must look to the new day all the possibilities. There was much more I think I might have been going to say but I can't remember.


Then someone said yesterday that it was an act of will to be happy, to be content with life, to not feel lonely, heart broken etc. I know she has not the best of health but she has a studio a house a husband children grandchildren..and obviously discipline because she teaches yoga and has a daily practice. Me? I'm infertile, fat, over fortyfive. I have too many ideas, spread over too many fields and I'm getting nowhere. I've got nowhere.

Today I felt restricted because I don't even really have anywhere to work. My art stuff in boxes, some sorted, some not, piled up. I guess if I threw away half my possesions I'd have a little space for a few months, but the effort in dealing with that too much. A lot of my work is on the computer and I don't even have one of those.

Getting to be too frightened. What inspires me at the moment? Plants, birds...naming them, sharing the knowledge, learning more.

Tulip season changes to poppy season


I decide I haven't the will.
Bereft.

1. deprived: deprived of somebody or something loved or valued
2. lacking: lacking in something desirable or necessarybereft of new ideas
3. feeling sense of loss: filled with a sense of loss

Lack: we walk to fill a lack...that came up in an essay about a project I was involved in. We make art to fill a lack...
Wander...crwydro...though my head. Tired. The beautiful necessary bird song.

blossom

Apple blossoms coming on the early flowering tree on the estuary (16th April) 2009; 2008. Quite late this year.

The sun shines through thin cloud. a mistle thrush and a willow warbler sings. but emotionally & physically i am a lead weight. I get cross at the dog - when I do the met readings he sits up the field and will rarely bring me the ball to throw, just looks at me with a hang dog expression; sometimes he brings it when I am reading the soil thermomenters, so easy for me to throw, but not today. I tried to be kind and walked up field to pick up, he wouldn't even meet me half way. I just don;t have the energy for that. But he doesn't ask much. I can't even please the dog!!

What is this weight? Do I muddle emotional & physical? Is it all just everything: exhaustion & a cold? Bach flower remedies come to mind...

On monday someone assumed I was pregnant, a devastating thing for me. A close friend has just had a baby and I tread on egg shells with myself, feel her delight. It brought out the hissing and spitting me mentioned earlier...and the the sad grief laden one, but I bit my tongue beyond saying "an impossibility" . I like wearing loose clothes, a lovely collection of old nighties and shirts, but become wary of doing so when I put on weight. My shoulders and upper chest don't look "fat" so belly big seems to mean one thing to people. Why make such personal assumptions with people you don't really know?

This is ridiculous too sad too tearful.

So many things to do in the next month. And I'll have a birthday.

fly away

in the first of the the new Dr. Who series he says he will be back in 5 mins, the little girl rushes away sling a few things in a small suitcase including a Bear. Puts on her wellies, a coat over her nightie and a hat on.

I wanted for Bear & I to fly away, fly away to somewhere safe to indigo skies, therein to curl up.

touch

Your breath slides silent * across this warm face at night * winter, my cold love

it's hard

It's hard feeling stuck, nowhere to turn, to reach out to. Cold frozen stone, unable to be shifted...then it thawed. When will it thaw for me?

Sometimes it seems the walls are almost touching my eyelashes, but beyond is vast and barren.

fog...no snow

damp cold fog. as we drive through the village I see peoples' breath in the air. down the road I see the mountain beside it a wall of fog filling the valley. we drive into that fog. such a heavy fog that it drips

watch the world

I want to sit with you and watch the world

I want to sit and watch the world with you

spring waiting

I hear a chaffinch sing and my heart falls apart. unbearable beauty and an inability to face spring myself.

And there is spring also waiting in buds, in the frost and snow.

blood

It's just weird sometimes... I bleed, it can make me feel very unwell; it's just about being a woman, a female. But it's all so pointless. A constant reminder of the continuous measure of my infertility, and a more painful and prolonged than the average reminder, each month. Oh of course sometimes I'm in full acceptance of it...this is what it is, how it is. But some times I get caught out....maybe an extra pain, an unexpected pouring and I can feel quite desolate or angry or hopeless. Then there will be the menopause to look forward to.

Is it any good speaking the anger? Is there too much confessional therapy one can do? Sometimes it brings others with similar experience, with something to share. I don't know, I really don't know. There is some stuff I've written it feels like it needs to be said but to who? Perhaps I'll think about it then come back and make a link to it...

I think of all the snow and frost and how it makes me feel more me, how it feels right, how I can feel happy in it. Red & white... none of it makes sense, but maybe that's ok. Life is a paradox anyway, isn't it?

a web

The entire chain is one. Down to the last link, everything is linked to everything else; so divine essence is below as well as above, in heaven and on earth. There is nothing else.

Book of the Pomegranate: Moses de Leon's Sefer Ha-Rimmon

gently observing age

blue blue dream

once bitten twice shy but the beauty is beyond fear.

by Another Name, the gentleness, the wish to watch, lean close.

Oh a movement around sharper reflections and light and lines but inside something worth the sideways glance,

the moving, bending, almost dancing.

To swim with this, to float with this.

To dream Sweet Deep Dreams of Blue.

To wake to an orange glow of a sunrise, shimmering and a touch like a whisper.

evening

the sun sets: and at this time of the year (this image was made in June) that means it re-emerges for a last shine very late.

although this is an image meant for someone in particular but I want to show it here, perhaps an attempt at gentleness and observation whilst feeling confused and anxious, not to mention sometimes very fedup with life the universe and everything...