Writing Sanctuary | Day Four

 

Responses to Beth Kempton’s prompts for BATHING

I am sitting in the old workshed. A bird’s piercing, swooping, sweet whistle repeats and falls silent, then sounds again, just once. An aeroplane mutters overhead. Something is rustling. The bird again. the light is soft and green.

. . .

~ DAILY SPARKS ~

The moon up there

If I could travel back in time,

It would be to when the moon remained

A silver disc

A shadowed face of mystery

A guide of tides and harvest

To a time without Time

Measured by the miracle of a fragile green bud breaking through

The burst of a blossom

The lazy, twisting drift of the first browned leaf to leave the tree

~

Flushed

With pride

~

Early morning swim

The flash of connection with a familiar stranger as they turn, pause in a moment to share this gold-dappled pool of chlorine cool, then push and reach and are gone, leaving ripples.

. . .

Responding to the invitation to dive into a story of water

:

That first night, arriving by boat in the fading light, the water seemed drastic

Earth toilet a horror-movie stumble through unfamiliar trees

The mainland an impossible stretch away

Waking sleepless to a picture-book day

We gathered blueberries plump and fresh with memories of walking Jean’s final climb

And mushrooms we had no hope of identifying

Across the other side of the island 

A Red-Riding-Hood walk away

Fresh dark Swedish bread and salty roll-mop and a boat to borrow

It took just half an hour to row back to our honeymoon home

Oars golden in the sun, lazy gazing at this new man of mine

Fingertips dandling 

We swam naked, nobody to see

The shock passed in an absence of breath

Cold enough to slip a wedding ring

We spent an afternoon holding the boat steady

Searching the pebbled sea-bed through a glass-bottomed coffee pot

I have never seen water so clear

And through it all you swam inside me

That first night for the first time you came to the surface

We felt you ripple

. . .

Today’s Person from Porlock : Exceedingly noisy chickens

Dancing for joy

And a break to meet with LW for coaching

I planned to work this afternoon on my portfolio,

so glad I settled back to this instead

. . .

Cold water sipped from a marine blue bottle with a squeaky cap. Warmer in the shed in the afternoon. A pigeon lands cumbersome with that strange squeaky whirr. The sudden slap of a sycamore leaf slamming its five fingers to the ground.

Writing in this space feels different. Words picked consciously a rhythm found by pausing considering looking beyond or seeking within. Unpacking. Pushing. Challenging.

It is safe to read aloud and the words mean differently that way.

I’ve been planning a post on instagram but part of me wants to keep my knowledge tucked in to me.

Today i have felt so proud.

(I wish there was another word. Perhaps there is.)