Summer time, When the livin is easy…

….though it has yet to show its insuociant sunny uplands to us in any form whatsoever.  I am watching the holiday-makers outside cowering under leaden skies. Time to take ourselves away to warmer climes. Much much warmer climes……..

And if anyone has lain flat on a Rajasthani roof-top of a clear evening, and stared at the carpet of stars above….they will understand this Sylvia Plath poem

Nichola Theakston  Pariah  Bronze, Ed. of 9  71 x 19 x 35 cm. £6,900

And thinking of stargazing….I was talking to Michael and Sue today and was reminded of my mother quoting Sean O’Casey

I ofen looked up at the sky an’ assed meself the question – what is the stars, what is the stars? When it was dark, you always carried the sun in your hand for me. That’s the Irish all over — they treat a joke as a serious thing and a serious thing as a joke..

From the heat of northern India to a frozen silhouette of an alpine summit.

And while we await the arrival of the long anticipated warmer weather…a little piece on being and  waiting by Canadian poet Steven Heighton

The slow road is the route for you
though you’d hoped for smoother, quicker –
to skip the Chilkoot, cruise the freeway –
false hope is a fast talker.
Long’s the long road worth the going
though the work might seem for ashes
as years compound and all that accrues
are exponential wishes –
but to look hunger in the eye
and to stare it straight to zero
and then to learn to love the wait
till the love is in your marrow
and the wait is no delay, but more
a seasoning of the will –
at no one’s pace but yours, your trail
and your own shoes to fill.

Ballad of the Slow Road

Lara Scobie’s colourful pots are an antidote to the gloomy skies….

And finally….a Buddhist tale of Carpe Diem…

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.

Relax by Ellen Bass

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Thanks as always for reading,

Aidan