I think this will be the last post in 2016.  there have been so many negative comments about this year.  It seems to have  been a very unpopular 12 months. For me, though it has been great. Except for becoming very sick and being carted off to hospital early on in the year.(just after Easter) it has been particularly full of happy events.

First, Brent and Trish came to visit. They stayed in the Evergreen visitors flat ( now no longer available) which was ideal. We had a very happy two weeks together. Then Danielle and I brought out my third book of poems. I am particularly proud of the cover design which features Danielle's thread art. In August Stephanie, Jane and I went to McGregor for the poetry festival. That was a very good weekend. Steph and I were quite successful with our combined presentation. We had the most appreciative audience we could have wished for.  Soon after that thee was my trip to Hogsback. Then the most exciting thing to have happened. The acquiring of a new Grandchild,. Dorothy's younger daughter, Amanda got in touch with us.after all these years. Luke was the one contacted first. I never expected this to happen. First we sent messages and e-mails  and then we had the joy of meeting her and spending Christmas together.  Eleanor and Andreas were here for Christmas too. What a very happy time!

Eleanor expressed what I  think we all experienced. She said that meeting Amanda was not like meeting someone new. It felt as though we had known her always. It was a pity that she and her partner, Carlyle couldn't stay longer, but I am sure they will come here again. I am glad that Amanda and Danielle, the two granddaughters who are much of an age are such good friends.

RAIN AT CHRISTMAS TIME

After the drought when

the edges of leaves on the sage bush

start to curl, the daisies die

my lawn  turns  to dust and straw

and everything is dry and grey,

all unexpected there comes

the blissful rain,

splashing the windscreen

filling the dogs’ bowls

washing the  potted pelargoniums,

and we collect in a small crowded studio

come together today, damp and laughing from

across the town, across the country

and across the world

Those in Authority

I was reminded in church today, that we are asked to pray for those in authority and also of a text in Paul's letter to the Romans in which we are told to obey those in authority because they have been placed there by God. If this is what we are told to do, I suppose we must do so, however much we may question God's reasoning and think that He has made a number of awful mistakes. It is hard to know how to pray. I would love to tell the Lord exactly what to do with those who are at present running our country. Without wishing anybody actual harm, it would be nice if most of  them would just quietly disappear. but it is obvious that I should not pray even for something as mild as that. I shall pray, however, with a clear conscience, for malice, greed and corruption in high places to come to an end.

HOGSBACK

These pictures were taken on the Hogsback Tour Iwent on recently

Decolonization

Among   red-brick ruins

Walking on the mountain, we  start to follow

a narrow path between  the  bushes

A ragged vagrant comes towards us  from behind a rock,

holds out a hopeful  hand

“I used to stay here,” he says. ”My friends and I .

Once there was a zoo here on this mountain slope

A zoo and a University.

Girls in short skirts, bright tops and scarves, boys in Tshirts and jeans

 would walk between the cages of jackals, porcupines and monkeys

A lonely mangy lion lived here  behind a  fenc e of stakes

A hollow block of stained  cement  made him a sort of-den

He sometimes used to give out strangled roars

to scare us  students  working late at night

This  space here was  the wildebeest and zebra paddock and

this tangled ivy  covered  stone  of lecture halls

Those rusted iron boilers and that broken chimney –pipe

are all that’s left of what used, long ago,  to be  

the  faculty of engineering .

We always sat here on these steps. reading and chatting

We sat here between classes.  and after seminars

Then later we all just sat here

Waiting, waiting,

It was the lion that left first and then the zebras and the monkeys.

I saw my friends off at the airport.

 others caught the Greyhound.

I was left behind.

PROTEST

They are so young, so brave, so beautiful

Facing shields and bullets with their stones

and their buckets of poo.

shouting  incomprehensible,t courageous words

as they break barriers ,beat  down towers,

force   gates to open up for  every  -one. l.

But when they get inside the walls they’ll  find

the halls of learning have dissolved,  

They’ve turned to mist and floated off into the cloud.

While the pale conquerors they so despise

have been invaded in their turn, been colonised

by dark hordes from the Middle East and Africa

Free Tertiary Education

 There has been nothing on radio and TV lately but Fees must fall protests. I may be thought a sceptic but it does seem as though the protests are timed to fall at the end of the academic year and so come at a convenient time to disrupt  exam schedules and this must be most welcome to those who have very little chance of passing.those exams.

 Contemplating the horrendous expense of three or four years at University,  I was struck by the thought that I myself  have been enjoying free tertiary education for the last few years. I have been taking advantage of the wonderful wealth of MOOC courses available online (for free) One can pursue almost any branch of learning just by getting onto the Internet. These days one doesn't even need access to a computer, a smart phone is all that is necessary,   Isn't the old model of residential universities very much outdated. Perhaps it is a good thing that protests are closing them down. Perhaps not much would be lost if they all closed their doors and instead broadcast lectures and discussions to those who really wanted to learn. If this happened, tertiary education would be much cheaper and could be within the means of most students. In fact it could  easily be totally funded by government. Many of the buildings presently used as student accommodation or lecture halls could be used for much needed sub-economic housing.

This week

Too much happening this month! Luke off to America, ,Danielle back from UK.,Launch of McGregor anthology. McGregor Poetry festival. How to fit it all in? But then I always  am quite busy. I used to think that when I was as old as I am now, I would be leading a dull and quiet life. How lucky to be living in the 21st Century! So many new and exciting discoveries. (I have just been reading about the discovery of two earth-sized planets in the Goldilocks zone of a cool (in temperature ) star only 40 light-years away.) So many new and exciting gadgets( although the technology is a bit beyond me) Of course the world is in a mess, with all sorts of disasters threatening it, but then hasn't it been threatened by  disasters for most of my life?  The difference is that now I am unlikely to live to see them come about. At McGregor Stephanie and  are doing a presentation entitled It's only being so cheerful..  At our age we might as well be cheeerful. There are not many years left. We should enjoy them as long as we can.

One of the exercises in the poetry course I have just completed, was to write an imagist poem describing a certain  object. I am not sure whether this poem fits the criteria and can be properly called imagist, but after making the  changes suggested on the course, I am quite pleased with it. The changes were mostly to do with the form -- splitting it into three stanzas and changing the line breaks. I was very surprised at how much such small alterations improved the poem.

Sharpened Visions

I have not visited my blog for more than a month. I have been so busy. with this Mooc, (Sharpened visions on Coursera). I can recommend it to any aspiring poet. Douglas Kearney, who conducts it, is a noted poet himself.  Although I can't make head or tail out of poems of his that I have read, he is an excellent teacher of poetry. He does not dictate,or criticise, but rather provides inspiration, by means of prompts for poems and suggestions for writing them. The most useful of his suggestions are those for re-writing and improving your poems.. As with all Moocs, peers review  your work and give feedback. In my case I found nearly all their comments were helpful and made for better poems.

Here are some of the poems I wrote on this course.

THE LAUNDROMAT OF LONELINESS

This is the place where single people come

from bed-sitters and rented rooms.

They sit on slatted wooden benches.

and listen to the whirring noise

of wash machines and tumble driers.

Avoiding one another’s gaze

they bury noses in worn paperbacks,

while faded towels and pillowcases

whirl round with unpaired socks and

threadbare underclothes.

TOAD IN A HOLE 

A shriek from Gairo, my domestic worker

A frog!  a frog! It’s in the shower room.

I run to see compressed there in a corner

a little shiny, round medallion, yellow

with blotch of  black and spots of scarlet.

 It is a tiny baby leopard toad.

A species, rare, endangered by the shrinkage

of habitat and threatened now by us.

We cannot leave it there, but do not wish

to squash with careless hand its softness

or let our fingers feel its slimy, toxic skin

I take a floppy, large spaghetti mop

and try to sweep the creature out the door

It doesn’t work; the mop is far too soft

I poke it with a canvas covered toe.

My foot is much too big to fit the niche

the animal is using as its shelter.

I take a kitchen towel and as it leaps away

I fling the towel over its elongated form,

grab it and wrap it tight, and then

I take it to the garden pond and let it go

and Gairo stops her shivering and startst

to clean all trace of frog out of the house

FROG LIPOGRAM

Boss off to loo

Frog on loo floor

Boss cross.

Oh! Oh!

Frog on loo floor

not cool.

Frog got to go.

How?

Mop no good,

too soft

foot no good

too gross

Stop! 

Cloth?

Throw cloth on frog

fold hold

boot frog to pond

Look Boss

Look Boss

No Frog

.

WRECK OF THE KAKAPO revised

We see the boiler and the rudder of the wreck

Between the ribs sand covers all the deck.

The rest of it lies buried far below.

She ran aground a hundred years ago

There was no loss of life, no dead.

The crew just jumped onto the sand and fled

The captain stayed for months alone on board

He hid for shame. He would not say a word

The captain knew that everyone would say

It was his fault the ship lay where she lay

He should have kept her safely as a son

Not see her wrecked before her voyage was done

The captain beat his breast; he tore his hair,

quite overcome by sorrow and despair.

Always as long as he drew breath

he would regret this day until his death.

That stormy day, the waves were big and wild

The wind wailed loudly like a tortured child

The surf pounded the shore, thundering aloud

The gale shook masts and rattled every shroud

To port a cliff was seen to rise up high

It’s shape was clear against the sky

The captain cried above the storm’s harsh sound

“Good helmsman, turn the ship around.

I see Cape Point behind it is False Bay,

and a harbour where our ship can safely stay

(but no one could have been as wrong as he)

Full-speed ahead the ship rushed from the sea

She dug herself into the sand so fair and square

That a century later she’s still sitting there

of Cape History just a tiny part

a ship’s wreck, a captain’s broken heart

DREARY DRAPES

(Note: In the Old Age Complex where I live we are required to have only neutral colours at all the windows.)

Twin censors of sight,

two lengths of  calico,

three metres up and three across

cover my bedroom window.

They cut out light and block the view

of trees and sky.

At the ceiling they deform

in pebbly gathers,

dirt-road corrugations from which flow

beige mudslides,

Cascades of silty ripples undulate sideways,

grow into waves and

billow at the floor

But at the centre where they meet,

they grudgingly allow

slivers of sunlight

to sidle through

and make the dust-motes

dance.