Flight Lessons

(source)

growing and flying

here and away from the nest

fledglings on the wing

eagle-eyed mother watches

oversees the lessons learned

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Supple With Strength

Stunted and blunt,

Some boughs of a tree,

Poor limbs pruned till ends reveal scars,

Sealed for protection,

Sad cry from full-blown,

Stalwart, tho’ hindered, life marred.

Tapering branches,

Each new bud, every flower,

Burgeoning sap coursing through,

Roots fit to match, mirrored,

Hidden beneath,

Supple with strength to endure.

Wizened above

But with shoots still to bloom,

Shelter and shade oft provides,

Network supporting,

Sprouting, spreading and sporing,

Encompassing, lineage abides.

Ringing The Changes

As anyone who reads this blog knows, my natural tendency in poetry is to rhyme. I can’t help it most times. It sort of pours out of me like the rain pours here in Scotland – mostly interminable with occasional bursts of sunshine to ring the changes.

Naturally, I’d love more sunshine but I’ve learned to love the downpours, the drizzle, the being dumped on from above. Hyperbole anyone? But I have learned to love the watery sunshine and the new growth that emerges so furiously after a deluge, the myriad shades of green and the promise of pastel relief.

Mostly I’ve learned to appreciate the sun when it does deign to chase the clouds away and then I’m like every other Scot enjoying the break from the seemingly incessant rain – get your kit off, harvest the rays and let the sun work its magic on pale skin.

We mushrooms might live in too much darkness, way too much moisture but we’re very tasty with a bit of square-sliced sausage and some bacon. Plain bread, brown sauce. Gawd, I’m starving! And we like to turn rotten into meaningful – slight political allusion there. 😉

Anyway, here’s my first Shadorma as far as I remember – mushrooms not being as noted for memory as taste and a slight hint of danger if not picked carefully!

I couldn’t resist a bit of free verse challenge too. Did I mention we Scots like a challenge on our plate?

  (  Shadorma Challenge – Passing Time )

In darkness

Or festooned by rain

Moisture mulched

Our springtime

Winters Byzantine’s fall

Mushrooms’ summer stance

---

Free Verse

Insouciant to Northern needs

Strange seasonal rhythm,

Clear skies belie what always gathers

To favour lush growth

And so the greens are very green

Of every hue

Weathered temples succumb to rot

As nature’s need to rejuvenate

Flushes and fuels, sprouting mushrooms,

Rich in resource, delicacies hardened and hardy,

Even in unnatural darkness

Bringing forth flavours

Building on the old.

Normal rhyming service will no doubt be restored because a new cloud burst always follows here. But, today, the sun is shining. Yay! Strip the veil and cast the spores! 😉

Clay Mask

Another take on my theme of masks.

 

clay dried, kilned, hardened,

rigid, unmoving, caught

timeless, 

statue unbroken,

but wait,

what’s this,

a crack.

tremor lines,

evolving,

spreading,

crouched statue separating from the man,

shards fall,

unmasked

revelation,

where spirit hidden,

essence unconcealed,

stood tall.

Toddlers’ Steps

All part of the journey,

tiny steps,

toddled steps,

reaching, wond’ring, touching, tumbling,

tentative steps, tiny steps,

falling down and bumping

and rising once again,

toddlers’ steps, the learning ones,

very little steps.

 

Frustrated tears and tantrums,

cautious steps,

toddled steps,

discovery in action,

wondrous steps, toaty steps,

letting go and trusting with some traction found and then

little steps, keep travelling,

very little steps.

 

Forwards, backwards, sideways, standing,

smiling, crying, up aspiring,

bumpy steps, toddlers’ steps,

fingers flailing, clutching, prising,

stumbling, reaching, failing, rising

step by step, step by step,

little butts keep tumbling, bouncing on and up,

teeny, tiny, teaching little steps.

 

perseverance, motion upright, two-step struggle, backwards,

forwards, ever onwards, sometimes upwards,

trying, failing, hurting, crying, immobilised, afraid,

still trying, trusting, seeing, wailing, weeping,

tempers, tantrums, dismayed and greeting,

pulling socks up, tying laces, ready, steady,

balance handy,

tiny little steps.

 

Eyes on loving arms outreaching,

smiling steps, trusting steps,

supporting, cheering, gaze unwaver’d

encouraged steps, building steps,

loving trust and confidence from others on the way,

little steps, the needed ones,

all important steps.

 

Striding out with self-assurance,

tiny steps,

toddled steps,

reaching for all promise,

swaying steps, bipedalled steps,

steps along the journey never really change their gait,

growth and progress toddle on,

determined toddlers’ steps.

 

Impact

World keeps right on turning

In spite, not because

Of everything done and said,

Following natural laws.

Impact from external

May just change its course

Devastate, deviate,

Improve where none can force.

Rotational, cyclical,

Dizzying cyclone,

Spinning, spinning, spinning on

World no one may own.

 

Loving Touch

Tracing limbs

 with lips

that savour sweetness,

saturated love

in slumber’s glow.

When the darkness

hides our dreams, 

or alters,

all we need is loving touch

to grow.

Curse or Cure

As one who buys into the curse of honest self-reflection,

I ponder ruse that briefs process, selective recollection,

Doughty effort, spirit voice, appraisals for collection,

Doubts regale, does truth prevail in analysed introspection.

---

And say what should the truth reveal in all the moments pensive,

Would aught be learned or changed withal or rejected, I dismissive

At risen thought and actions wrought, words that I have spoken,

Accepted, viewed, for change previewed, or merely selfish token.

A gesture only, naught confessed to mind and all that matters,

Hidden guilt, a comfort quilt, then tossed in pieces, scattered.

No perfection, no, not here, nor nearly, though aspired,

Appraisals made, some darker shades of earthbound, deep desires.

Very much a worldly way in living here below,

These thoughts that haunt, as spectres gaunt, a valve restrictive flow

To missives from my spirit born, my better half, by far,

Reflections thrust, my heart unjust, life and time to scar.

But still, I ponder, recollect, review and hope rebounds

That thinking ranges, plans the changes, till spirit voice resounds.

And so it goes….

The plans changed.

We adapted.

That’s life.

Six became four,

then five,

by technology.

Presence begat

seven.

Two absent by

choice,

circumstance.

Seven embraced nine,

then many.

Growing conversation

included the world,

its entirety,

its meaning,

purpose,

subterfuge,

conspiracies

and realities.

And realities of conspiracies.

 

Gallons of humour.

Tears

of laughter

and understanding.

Hugs and kisses of short farewells

and longer journeys.

Dismissives of maternal worry

enclosed in comprehensive travelogues.

Tickles of

tender teasing,

rude, graphic, enacted

diffusion.

Undiluted,

concentrated

love.

My family.

More growth.

And so it goes.

Power To All Our Friends…..

So I ‘do’ poetry and fantasy and sensuality. A little eroticism goes a long way for me too. I ‘do’ family and politics. And pretty much anything that comes up my humph if the truth be told. And I’m partial to the truth. Even though it hurts sometimes.

There’s something of a crisis occurring on this little planet of ours. And all the sex and romance in the world can’t nullify its presence.

Huge stuff.

Stuff that puts matters of shagging and candlelit dinners into the shadows. Stuff that affects us all. And our kids.

There’s a power battle going on. Yup. Let’s call it evil and good. Devil versus God. Call it what you will. Well, no. For the sake of argument and clarity let’s call it what it is.

It is the battle between selfishness and the well-being of humans as a species.

Have I got that quite right? Let me think. Certain individuals acting individually or corporately to further their own ends here ensuring a world of humanity destined to servitude and alienation from self-determination and continuity of a thinking and free species?

Would that be about right?

Now, I’m no expert on anything. Other than, possibly, the method and manner of primary education and child development. I studied that shit. Well, I passed papers on it. And I’ve practised it for around thirty years. So, something of an expert I’d hazard.

Also, I have to admit, family members (who shall remain nameless) have accused me of having more brains than common sense. I’ve had to own up to that a fair few times I have to admit. Embarrassing moments when, well, never mind when. ‘Nuff said.

So I get that I’m no guru. Nor wizard of any description. I’m not even up on some of the current news happenings because they depress the hell out of me.

But I do know a few things.

I recognise common sense when I see it. I do think. I’m not always right. Although don’t tell my weans and man that.

But there’s an awful lot of stuff coming together for me at the moment.

Oh, first let me warn some people that this could get political.

Sorry, scratch that. It is political. It’s also spiritual. It’s also practical. It has its roots in humanity and a god I believe and trust in. A god who gave us the free will to get on with it. The capacity to think. And a source of love that is endless and self-generating once harnessed.

Now, I know that Cole would maybe have issues with the god part but she’s so cool she’ll allow it. Each to their own as it were. She’s so cool ice freezes further in her presence before melting under her persuasive and reasoned arguments. And the heat of her passion for right. She epitomises for me an upbringing of stellar quality, so obviously surrounded by love and logic that reaches out to embrace humanity and clarify some misguided notions. She wants a better world. Speaks for a better educated populace that is capable of reasoning and value judgements that go beyond myths and legends. Even while she loves and knows the myths that created much of what we believe. How cool is that?

Now I separate here with her on the presence of omnipotent forces. But I also feel that my faith and hers are so similar in essence.

Like Beth, a woman of thought and feeling, I share their desire and hope for a better world to leave our children. For a better world that we can live in right here and now. Beth is so on the mark with common sense and intellect. So practical. And articulate. She’d sure as hell make a better job of this post than me.

Both Beth and Cole have written extensively on education and the demerits of its current state in each of their countries. I’ve written a bit about it myself.

Aspirationally, every culture once sought to educate their children to the point, at least, of literacy and numeracy. Teachers engaged in this as a priority. Some took rather strange routes to achieving this aim I grant you and not all of them laudable.

But, in literacy especially, and in exposure to thoughts written and recorded from the beginnings of time we learn about our world. In the humanities we reach and delve into the commonality of human experience and seek our place in becoming explorers of a brave new world.

Unless, of course, education is dumbed down. Unless, of course, it benefits some higher authority to produce semi-literate individuals whose driving force is survival and fear. Or articulate beings but whose motivations are other than communal growth and welfare. Where is the brave new world and the hope of all our futures? Where are the original thinkers of a new dawn as each generation must prove to be?

Where is the action?

Currently, governments the world over are being manipulated and, more likely, controlled by bodies that do not represent the people they were elected to represent.

Yeah, yeah, conspiracy, blah.

Well if I’m paranoid it’s only because I can tell when some big bastard is following me. I hear them breathing, I sense their presence, I see their footprints when I look behind me. I know when I’m about to be shafted. The signs are there. Let’s face it, it’s not really ‘about to be’. We are currently being screwed by entities that exist to serve self. These entities, however, are no demons wrought from mythology. Rather, they are the personification of the greed and selfishness inherent in us all if we choose not to control those instincts for a more valid and worthwhile national and global state of affairs.

Now I don’t know about you but when I succumb to pleasures of the flesh I say if, I say when, I say who, I say yes. Or no.  Even in the lawfully binding contract of marriage I have authority over my own person.

I want to view the family as the epitome of government.

OK not all families operate under the same rules. But the common factor usually, or ideally, is a desire to further the individual membership while retaining a sense of the whole and working together towards an advancement of individual talents and worth, while not destroying the fabric of the whole support system.

It doesn’t always work. More’s the pity.

But, in whatever form the family takes, where there is love and a desire to cultivate that love through education and acknowledgement of its intrinsic, unique and constituent parts there is hope. Hope that new and brave ideas germinate and take root. Hope that the world continues. That it recognises that humanity is but a blip on the planet and, without intervention on all our parts, the world may continue but we may not. Not in any sense worthy of recording in history.

Gawd, I’ve gone off on one.

This is so not what where this post was leading.

Let’s see if I can break the habits of a lifetime.

Power.

Literally and metaphorically.

Is it just me or has anyone else spotted the obvious?

On this gorgeous big planet of ours there is a renewable source of energy in every country. Every single one. Name one where the sun doesn’t shine. Or wind doesn’t blow. Or waters don’t flow. Even if we only have one out of three we have the capacity to generate power repeatedly.

We in Scotland would have to depend more on the water and wind option. But I’m good with that. Might as well get some benefit from the crap weather.

Tell me. Is there a place on earth where some renewable form of energy does not exist?

Might the ability and will to generate it be the answer to some of the conflicts that abound worldwide?

Yes there will always be greedy bastards who want to make more from whatever sources they can conjure up, manufacture trouble where peace could exist. Carve out of the earth cash and chaos where order and sustenance could prevail.

But that’s kind of where education comes in. If we know. If we care. If we have the will.

I knew I’d get there in the end.

Just always takes a bit of time with me.

And I know. Before anyone says it. It has been mentioned by family members (who shall still remain nameless) that I could personally supply the grid with enough air to supply the needs of Scotland for generations to come. But I’m kinda good with that too.

Now, Cliff Richards kind of says what I’m saying and you’ve got to have a laugh in the midst of all the serious stuff. So, If you can take his words seriously while doubling up at the costume and dance routine so much the better. Who knew, Steve, that the Eurovision Song Contest would feature in one of my posts? Not me, that’s for sure. But more power to it if, occasionally, we get classics like this!

Please take the time if you can to check out the links mentioned. You won’t be sorry. The world needs people of this calibre. I’m proud to follow their thoughts and journey.