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Another last-minute one inspired by an image from the British Library. It probably needs a bit more work. The title comes from a biblical quotation.

The Fall of the Sparrow

Down fell the sparrow
with a twig in its beak.
It called to the world:

‘I may be small,
but do not forget me
or neglect me.
I have my needs and
purposes, like you,
I have my tasks,
and responsibilities:
a home for my family,
and food for their bellies,
protection from harm,
so they may rise
and raise themselves
and the next generation.

I have neighbours to chide
and a mate to provide for
and grubs to hunt down
and cats to avoid.

So think of me going
about my business
as you do yours.
My way is a small way,
but it matters to me.’

Linda Rushby 14 April 2022

Fans of the late, great Terry Pratchett will recognise the literary reference in this, which was inspired by yet another image from the British Library.

The Turtle Moves

Through the deeps of space with a world on its back
The Turtle Moves.

Its ponderous fins coast the solar winds
and The Turtle Moves.

Whether you believe, or whether you don’t,
still The Turtle Moves.

Imagination drives it on
so The Turtle Moves.

Linda Rushby 13 April 2022

#NaPoWriMo

Words fail me.

Here is a haiku inspired by 1) listening to the news and 2) a book cover image from the British Library website.

Open your eyes now
and see the World As It Is
if you can bear it.

Linda Rushby 12 April 2022

#NaPoWriMo

I seem to be on a nonet-roll.

Redemption

That was the day when the weather broke.
Months of drought had ravaged the land.
Parched brown fields, cracked and fire-wracked
lay exhausted until
the clouds burst and a
rainbow appeared
there in the
falling
rain.

Linda Rushby 11 April 2022

Thanks to my friend Marian who laid down a challenge on Facebook to write a ‘Nonet’ – instructions as follows:

‘A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the second has eight, and so on until you get to the last line, which has just one syllable.‘

Here’s my effort, describing a problem I’m way too familiar with:

Insomnia

Thoughts and worries waken me each night
I lie awake and curse the mind,
(or should I say the demons?)
that torture me this way.
Why is it so hard
for me to find
a peaceful,
good night’s
sleep?

Linda Rushby 10 April 2022

#NaPoWriMo

#NaPoWriMo #southseastorytellers

Not sure whether this is a fragment, or the beginning of something longer, but, given that I’ve committed to writing something every day, and it’s already dinner time, it’s probably just going to be this.

Spring

Latticework of twigs
against a sky of lapis.
Vines of deep green ivy twining upward ,
wrapping round the trunks and boughs,
springing from the earth,
and pushing out to heaven
the pale green buds
that open in the golden glow
of April sunlight.

Linda Rushby 9 April 2022

Unintended

Yesterday I thought
that I could write a poem on anything.
Today I’m not so sure.

Shit happens all the time,
events have consequences
no one can predict.

The unexpected always lies in wait
to trip the best of thoughts
and set the path for unintended outcomes.

Tomorrow I may find myself
along another track,
or climbing back upon the carousel
to take another turn around.

Linda Rushby 8 April 2022

Wrote this yesterday morning in bed in a notebook, then I got up, went for a swim, had breakfast, went to the station to pick up my daughter, then she took me out for a birthday treat and I never got back to the laptop so it’s a day late. I’ll try and write another one later today.

How to Write a Poem

This is what happens:
I have a thought.
The words form a pattern
and fall into rhythm.
(I don’t do rhymes;
that’s far too tricky.)

They tinkle like crystal
or pound like hoofbeats,
and there they are,
they bounce through my head
and lead me onward.

Mostly it’s like this:
the good old iambic,
the stress and the rest
follow after each other.
Sometimes they stretch out
if I’m feeling more reflective.

I don’t often edit
or search for the right words,
it’s not really worth it.
I just let them happen,
these throwaway ditties,
but some people like them.

Somebody asked me:
‘What makes it a poem
and not something else?’
The question confused me.
What else could it be?
It’s rarely a story,
not exactly an essay,
just thinking in rhythm.

Bite-sized stream-of-consciousness,
snapshots of my psyche,
windows on my mind.

And that’s what makes a poem.

Linda Rushby 7 April 2022

You may have noticed that I didn’t post a poem on this site yesterday. This is because I spent a couple of hours trying to do so via my PC, but when I tried to post it, WordPress kept writing it to a mysterious blog which I can’t remember setting up but apparently must have done so three and a half years ago.

Today I am on my laptop, and try as I might, I can’t write anything to the aforementioned blog but only to this one. So I’ve copied it here and republished (see previous post), although apparently it should be possible to ‘reblog’ posts from other blogs, but all of the helpful advice for how to do this, as supplied via Google, appears to be years out of date.

As for supplying a poem written today, I did write a sort of poem first thing this morning, which at the time of writing summed up perfectly the way I feel when I wake up and face the day.

And as I decided that this year my daily poems would each be illustrated in some way, I’ve attached an image plucked more or less at random from the British Library Flickr feed, in the hope that it conveys some of the sense of panic I feel at the thought of trying to string some words together in an orderly fashion (or even just getting out of bed in the morning).

Facing the Day

Every morning when I wake,
I’m scared
of all the things that I might do that day.

I’m scared
of forgetting things,
of getting things wrong,
of losing things,
of breaking things,
of saying the wrong things,
or to the wrong people.

Because I’m scared
of other people
and all the ways
I might annoy them,
frustrate them,
get in their way,
disappoint them,
let them down.

Every day
the world is full of risks
that I will reveal myself
and cause such chaos
and fail again
as I always do,
every day.

That’s why I hide
and run away.
This is my life
the way it’s always been
and always will.

This is the deepest part,
the deepest heart of me.
I’ve tried to change,
and now I’m trying to accept
that nothing changes.

So I try to be honest,
so at least you will know
the truth about me,
and understand me
as I am
the way I see myself.

I’ll be alone,
but I won’t have to worry
about being found out,
and you won’t expect
any better of me.
I won’t let you down
any more.

Linda Rushby 6 April 2022

I saw a photo on my desktop,
one of five hundred that scroll around
at thirty second intervals.

It showed a quirky group
of happy little curios
taken through the window of some shop
I’d passed along my travels.

Was it in Paris? Or perhaps Turin?
(Both places where I wandered, window-shopping.)
Maybe Zagreb, or even Istanbul?
Or Venice, I wondered,
as a sense of desperation overcame me.

I found the original,
taken on an ancient Nokia,
no useful information.

The only date, the fourth of May,
the last time it was edited,
but not when it was taken.

That day I was in Mostar,
not a place, as I recall
with many antique shops.

It must have been
one of the twenty five (or so)
locations where I’d been
before I got there.

Bologna? Split?
Somewhere in Brittany
or Northern Spain?

How could I search
eight thousand photos
in over two hundred folders?

‘At least’, I thought
‘I can write a poem about it’.
But I was wrong.

Linda Rushby 5 April 2022