For one reason or other, fear steps in and steals the pen. Hides the ideas and inspiration and takes control of my actions or more rightly speaking inactions.
Stringing a few words together into a sentence, phrase or stanza has been an elusive affair this year. Fear, worries, anxieties usually around finances, lack of work and finding a new home have all sapped my energies and motivation to create anything of worth and meaning. Anything that speaks from my heart and soul and keeps my flames, never mind anyone else’s flame, alive.
And then what? I listened. I carved out some time and space to just listen. Outdoors and within, and then the words began to resurface again. I allowed them to come without judgment. Fear still there but I’d somehow ran around it and found the pen to meet the page.
I allowed my shoulders to drift away from my ears and the air circulated. I caught a whisper of something. A chant or an incantation. Something to hold onto and ride out into play and practice.
Words held my attention again. Can I say love? Well we certainly spent some cosy evenings together rolling around. Some words lodging in my throat, wanting to come out and expand. Prussian, shaggy, mockingjays, flight and linger. Words that wanted to linger on my tongue, in my subconscious and in the drafts.
Curiosity now, rather than fear, was leading the way. And I was happy to follow.
Here I share something I created in the thick of it, with moist grass tickling my ankles and the rain still falling soft upon my skin.
Wishing you all the best for the coming season. Thanks for being here and see you again in 2024.
akin to a child-like wonder
long legs glide through the tall grass and wood chippings
its too early for blueleg brownies, for their smooth heads
but she still looks for them on cool summer evenings, moon
dropped from a lilacblue sky, air cracking with promise,
wound gaping where she allowed a lover to settle and leave.
she looks for the young chestnut brown, wavy and sticky
to the touch caps, relying on her herbwives’ blood from ancestors,
remembering them burnt at the stake taking their mushrooms
wisdom with them.
she looks to the magic within the land for healing,
for noticing the beauty of the things around her again.
long slender stems glided in tall grass and wood chip,
in a blue autumn, will bruise blue, like popping dark blue veins,
when touched
when damaged.