Thinking of Minnesota

This picture is Niall and Nessa at a dinner in Portland - made me nostalgic for NAPT ...

Communities of poets

wrapped in words

robed in words

crowned with words

in love with wonderful words

You going one way, me in the other

Yesterday, a friend left Cornwall for London, to live very close to where I did before I came to Cornwall. I was surprised at how emotional I felt - it brought back all the places I had left, the farewells and the ruptures of relationships - a new feeling for me as previously, it had always felt 'right' that people moved on. Last night, I went to two parties - one for someone who had turned 80, the other 50 - full of their communities, children, grandchildren, shared history. As a relative new-comer, no children, not much history, I felt honoured to be there.

I'm uploading a picture of some of my writing community - taken eighteen months ago, since when there have been many changes in circumstances for the people in it ... Here's my poem:

We're all smiling although later

many of us will shed tears

We're together although tomorrow

some of us will wake to the ache of loneliness

Born alone, to die alone, but for that moment

we're together, smiling, one.

Two months asleep

Yesterday was like midsummer - I walked through Nansidwell down to the beach where people were in swimsuits, picnicking. The woods are coming alive - wild garlic, celandines, the first bluebells, birds busy nesting. This morning, thick mist so that the sea is invisible.

Mist

As the mist outside

hides the boats, the sea, the sun

my mind clears -

April's here, something's begun.