Fabulous Freecycle.....

I still really prefer to give things to charity because I like the thought of my things going straight to people in need or money being raised from my unwanted things to help a charity's vital work. Plus, it's easier to put small things in a bag and take them to the nearest charity shop, rather than make arrangements for pick up. But, for those awkward things that the charities 'can't pass on to their clients' or 'can't sell' in their shops (for us this has recently included some really nice shelving) Freecycle is fab! Advertise your things and people want them! Your junk finds a new home! Everyone's happy!

Haiku - Twilight, Dusk

sunset fades

to a memory -

blackbird song.

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rising moon caught

in empty black branches -

blue velvet sky.

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dusk haunts

the garden -

honeysuckle.

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cooler

after sunset -

cicadas.

Dusk / twilight for One Deep Breath

Proof of Spring in February

Let hope be the sound of blackbird song
pre-dawn when it still feels like winter

Let joy be crocuses, glowing yellow
against snow under empty trees

and if geese overhead are heralds
bringing Spring on their frosted wings

then when squirrel drinks from melt-water
in the crook of an old oak tree

it is proof that Spring will return
like a deer to the bluebell woods.

Proofs for Poetry Thursday.

Can we prove love? Find out on my Alter Ego blog here.

Haiku / Senryu - Connections

Sitting between

the roots of an old oak tree -

I write.

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overhead

a skein of geese honking -

my heart flies with them.

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top floor city flat -

the everchanging skies

full of birds

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my grandparent's house -

purple flowered clematis

winds around the gatepost.

Connections to Nature for One Deep Breath

Book Inspired Art

Inspire Me Thursday recently had a makeover and is a now a wonderful resource for inspiration for crafting bloggers. This week's prompt is to be inspired by books. I love books! For my direct response to the prompt I started a new altered book. I have a copy of In Other Words (The Journal for Literary Translators) which struck me as ideal material for an altered book. I will work on this slowly and will occasionally post pages. This is the first page. I selected words from the text and then built up a picture around these words. I deliberately kept this simple, largely due to not having time to do anything complicated! It all looks a bit pale in the photo, but i hope you get the idea! The silver circle represents both the moon and the mirror in the selected text. The selected words almost form a poem:

Alone for years
translator holds up a mirror
many moons ago
impenetrable prose
light shone into dark
meaning opening up.
Translator -
watcher of the shadow and what it suggests.
Meanings hover between words
poetry
dazzling.


For other examples of my book related crafts, please see:

Notebooks made from recycled materials
A page from my first altered book.
Another page from my first altered book

Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock

I don't generally read fantasy fiction, despite the fact (or perhaps because?) my partner reads virtually nothing else. However I recently read Francis Spufford's memoir about his childhood reading and he had been a real fantasy fan. This book, Mythago Wood, was mentioned and sounded interesting. Lo and behold it was on my partner's bookshelves! So I read it - its good to read something entirely different to your usual reading once in a while! Mythago Wood is based on an interesting idea about a woodland that exists largely as the result of the collective imagination and is populated by mythagos - people, animals and even buildings that also come from the collective imagination. I found this fascinating, especially the persistance of ancient types in the human subconscious and the subtext that the wildwood is nature waiting to take over all human follies, such as the entire modern world itself. I enjoyed the adventure element of the story too, though it sometimes felt contrived.

In theory I like science fiction and fantasy because of the way they use invented worlds to comment on real life. Escapism with a serious point, if you like. In practice though I tend not to read genre fiction at all.

This just about fits belatedly with last week's Sunday Scribblings prompt of fantasy.

Haiku - Process

The prompt on One Deep breath this week is to write haiku or tanka about Process. As I recently reviewed a very inspiring tanka publication (Gusts, a Canadian tanka journal) I wrote a tanka as well as a haiku. Both pieces deal with the process of craft as inspired by the natural world.

dawn –
birdsong inspires me
to poetry.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I carve
the twisted branch -
a bird
frees itself
from the wood’s grain.