Moving Object: The Wind

Moving Object: The Wind

You haven’t seen the

Wind, nor have I, no one

     has.

Yet we know it’s there,

throwing powerful strikes

at the world, controlled

     by no one.

          But,

it can also be calm,

     like a gentle whisper

     on the surface of

     a Still pond.

Olivia White, 14 years.

Moving Objects

Moving Objects

To Olivia

On Sunday we really didn’t do that much

Which is for us, unusual. It seems to me sometimes that we are in constant

Motion, going about our work, studies, hobbies, social lives, often apart and

Occasionally together.

But on Sunday I was moved not to move, not to go out rock climbing. Instead

I had a day at home with you.

Made a cake

Invited friends and your grandparents round to eat it with us.

We did our own things, but came together every so often

To eat, to drink tea, to tell a joke, to share a thought.

It was a wonderful day, filled with quiet wonders.

It’s so very easy to get carried along in the flow of events

Being busy. So easy

To forget the pleasure to be found in just hanging out

With someone you love.

And time flies so terribly fast.

In just a few years you will be grown and gone

Falling headlong into your own exciting life

Which I shall follow with adoration and interest, but as

A spectator.

This knowledge gives me quite literal

Pause. Makes days like Sunday

Special.

Every day with you is special

The eventful ones, as well as those in which we really don’t do that much.

The Moon

The Moon

6 January, 2018

We went to Smuggler’s Cove today, you and I

Always deserted, being the least lovely beach in all of Dorset.

We picked our way down the latest slump of muddy cliff to gravel and stone

Turned our faces towards the ocean.

The still, oily, almost-movementless sea

An occasional tiny ripple moving landwards

Apologetic waves: sorry to disturb the glassy surface.

But the grey liquid silk was broken anyway

By rock shelf, pocked with pools.

And further along the beach, by the ribs and sternum of a long-wrecked coal ship

Rising high, giving perch to seabirds.

Although we visit this beach often I have never seen so much rock exposed

Never seen so much geology on show.

Most days, history hides below sliding

Sometimes raging

White-crested sets of almost-surfable waves.

The water was in retreat.

We talked about school, about the merits of your various subjects and their teachers.

While all the time walking through one massive, for-real physics lesson.

Because the ocean was being sucked into the earth’s middle

The way a fat man sucks in his stomach to slim his shape.

The opposing force meanwhile, was weak.

Today is New Moon here in Dorset

The beginning of a fresh lunar cycle.

The moon today was as far away from Smuggler’s Cove as it will be for a month

Giving the rocks, the pools and the teeming life within them

Their chance to shine.

And giving us the chance to see them.

Because we went to Smuggler’s Cove today, you and I.

The beginning of it all: The Dance

10 December, 2018

The Dance

For Olivia

It was a plain, white, plastic carrier bag.

Once it had proudly borne a takeaway, or perhaps some vegetables from the market

But emptied of its purpose it was just

a plain, white, plastic carrier bag.

Unremarkable and unremarked.

Except that is, by me.

Because me it was who fortune favoured with the sight

of that plain carrier bag in flight

Dancing

                  Whirling giddy on eddies of wind

                  round and round

                  bobbing, weaving

                  soaring high into the grey sky

                  then diving

                  again and again

                  trapped in the corner of the multi-storey car park staircase.

Just for me, right then and there, the greatest show on Earth

                                                                                          I stood, I admired, I applauded

                                                                                          recorded the moment in my mind.

And years later I write this for you, my wonderful, dancing daughter.

And maybe in years to come you will read this with a wonderful, dancing child of your own.

                                    And in doing this we have proof absolute

                                    that we can put an end to single-use plastic.­­­

The Write To Me Project

MY DAUGHTER has reservations about her English teacher. I raised her on tales of an inspirational English master, who introduced me to lofty tales I never dreamed might exist, then encouraged me to write even taller yarns in yellow-covered exercise books. The man single-handedly turned me into a writer. In doing so, he tossed me the keys to a lifetime's enjoyment and – to varying degrees over time – a livelihood. 

I was saddened beyond measure when Olivia told me that the creative writing part of her school English lessons lacked any kind of spark, left her uninspired. And that is how the Write To Me project was born. It started with a sputter, as our Christmas journeying got in the way. But with New Year it has become a regular fixture. The format is simple: each week one of us chooses a title. We both write something to that and present it on Saturday to the other. I collect the result in a folder on my desktop. There are no rules, other than that what we create is written. 

In this blog I shall publish my pieces. If Olivia wants one of hers to appear, it shall. If not, it shall not. What we write can be short or long, poetry, prose, reportage or any assemblage of words we choose. All that matters is that we write.