Sunday 26 July 2020

Rooks






Dear Reader,



I have always been aware and interested in rooks (see poem) and have found a little bit about them to share with you.  The rook is a member of the crow family in the passerine order of birds. Its range can be found extending from Scandinavia and western Europe to eastern Siberia. 

Rooks form flocks in winter, often in the company of other Corvus species or jackdaws.  They are generally regarded as bad luck and a large group of rooks arriving in an area is said to be unlucky.  If rooks desert a rookery then a calamity could occur.  They gather together at night to roost in a spot where they have good visibility and reasonable shelter.

Rooks are intelligent birds as in lab-based studies have tested their ability to solve problems and use tools. The rook is a member of the Corvid or crow family which is famed for its intelligence.

                                                                         *

Francis and I really had an adventure this week.  We sat outside a small restaurant in the sunshine and had a delicious lunch and a cool drink of white wine. It was such a treat since we had been nowhere, outside our house, for nearly five months.   I had nearly forgotten what fun it is to eat out and, more particularly,
not have to do the washing up. I hope there will be more outings to come before the second wave engulfs us.
                                                                           *

Rooks

I was fourteen
when I first heard
the call of the rooks
caw-cawing
their eerie cries.

From a Cornish cottage garden
I walked down through
dark woods to the beach,
a remote place,
just dunes, sand, the sea
and me, a confused, angry teenager,
with the rooks caw-cawing in my ears
disturbing my thoughts.

Even now, in later years,
whenever I hear whispers from the wind,
or sea lapping over large grey stones
ever forward, ever backward,
glimpse a faraway horizon
and see twilight descending
darkening the sky,
the rooks in large black groups
flying high towards
their evening bed,
cawing, cawing, cawing,
my heart misses a beat
and an unexplained sadness
overcomes me.

                                                                           *

Very best wishes, Patricia

Sunday 19 July 2020

Kitchen Clean





Dear Reader,


I was able to go to the hairdresser's last week after not going for five months. I was thrilled to be going because I had been able to plait my hair for the last few weeks and had begun to look like Worzel Gummidge.  But what was interesting about the whole adventure of going out again after so long was my worry about driving, and the difficulties I had putting on the mask. Where the driving is concerned I had lost lots of confidence and drove along very slowly, probably annoying other drivers and frightening myself. 

Now for the mask.  I wear hearing aides and glasses so have to put the elastic on the mask over hearing aid and the arms of the glasses.  So to say that this is uncomfortable would be a understatement, but worse, when I took the mask off the hearing aides one got entangled and fell to the floor. Luckily I saw it happen but if I hadn't noticed that would have been £600 to buy a new one.  And of course masks steam up the spectacles and are very hot to wear.  I count myself lucky that I don't have to go out very often because I think masks and me are not good companions.

And with the continued re-assessment of when and where to wear them I am in a complete muddle about the rules.  Are you dear Reader, in a muddle too?

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July 16th, 1666 in Essex from Samuel Pepys's diary.


'A wonderful dark sky and shower of rain this morning.  At Harwich a shower of hail as big as walnuts'.

July 16th, 1873 in Wiltshire from Francis Kilvert.

'As I walked along the field path I stopped to listen to the rustle and solemn night whisper of the wheat, so different to its voice in the day'.

                                                                                *

Kitchen Clean

He made a chicken supper
vegetable and pudding,
lots of dirty saucepans
and bowls strewn around
the kitchen.
Lovely food and terrible mess.
Left it.

Three a.m. couldn't sleep
pattered down to the kitchen
and there it was
an immaculate picture of
cleanliness and tidiness
he had worked on
when I had gone to bed.

My heart filled with love.


                                                                               *

With very best wishes, Patricia


Sunday 12 July 2020

Silent, Their Men Stand by

Dear Reader


My poem this week 'Silent, their men stand by" I thought of when I was staying in Marrakesh  one autumn.  My husband and I were staying in small chalet in the garden of a lovely hotel in the mountains
not far from the desert and the Berber tribesmen.  We had a local girl to clean the room and I became very friendly with her.  But she didn't speak a word of English and I didn't know a word in her language.

But somehow we managed to communicate, laughed together and shed a tear when we left.  And Geoffrey
was astounded.  "What on earth did you say to her, he asked me.  You don't speak her language".  But of course I do in a way.  It is the smile, the shrug, the laughter, the tears.  These are universal gestures of being human and easy to  interpret. She was just another woman, with all the hopes and fears all women have and I understood her perfectly.

                                                                          *

Silent, Their Men Stand By

as universal woman talks
with women
who are not friends,
or neighbours,
or women they know or love,
just women.

Their bonding thread
is laughter, touch, glance, cry,
instant understanding.

While silent, mystified, their men stand by.

                                                                       *

With very best wishes, Patricia

Sunday 5 July 2020

Resolution

Dear Reader,

I have decided not to put any more photographs on to Face Book from this week onwards. I think I never really understood what Face Book was for, but it has slowly dawned on me that it isn't for people who want to read my blog or indeed my poetry.  It is a sociable medium, where you can read about your friends, see amusing photographs of them, or write about anything that has struck you of interest in the week.

Sometimes if I see something of interest I will put it up but, in the meantime, I will just continue to write this blog and publish one of my poems each week.  I hope you will still enjoy the page which you can get by putting : acotswoldpoet.blogspot.com     onto google and it will come up.  I hope.   I am not very computer literate but I think that will work.

                                                                                   *

July 5th, from Dorothy Wordsworth, 1802 in Westmorland

'A very sweet morning.  William stayed some time in the orchard....It came on to rain, and we could not go to Dove Nest as we had intended....The roses in the garden are fretted and battered and quite spoiled, the honey suckle, though in its glory, is sadly teazed.   The peas are beaten down.  The scarlet beans want sticking.  The garden is overrun with  weeds.'


                                                                                  *

Resolution

I need to breathe salt sea air,
run down to the shell-strewn beach,
let the sharp east wind blow through my hair,
run for the horizon away out of reach.

I need the sound of the seagull's cry,
the music of waves rolling on sand
to help with questions of whether and why
I should change my direction, and stand

up for what I believe in.
I need the strength I know I will find
on that quiet sunfilled beach,
to be resolute, make up my mind.

Enveloped in peace, silence and sea
I will whisper to the listening wind,
"I have made the decision, watch over me,
I"m taking the path I've determined".


                                                                              *

Very best wishes, Patricia