An update, a poem – and au revoir

Hello to all my dear blogging friends. I have decided the time has come for me to take a break from blog land. I have been blogging full on for over four years and it’s time for a break.

There are two main reasons for this. First, I feel somewhat in a rut in my daily life and need a change of direction. I have a host of novels waiting to be read on my kindle and a bookcase full of excellent poetry books to read. There are also some wonderful day time radio programmes on radio 4 here in the UK and I miss so many of them; this needs to be rectified. I will, of course, still be attending my great writing group on Fridays and rising to the poetic challenges. And I am in need of getting out of the house more whenever possible.

The second reason is that very soon work will begin on our home to install a downstairs bathroom for me with disabled facilities. In order to do this an internal wall will have to be knocked through and an extension erected at the back of the house. As you can imagine this is a huge project and is going to need much thought. planning and there will be mess!!

Thank you all for your wonderful consistent support and encouragement, without which my blog wouldn’t have survived. I will still pop into WordPress now and again to read some of your work when I can. And I will be back!

So the following poem will be my last post for a while. As you know, most of my poems are born from personal experience but the following one is not a personal one in any way at all; it is merely a situation I chose to practice writing a Petrarchan sonnet, my very first attempt!

Beautifully Broken

They promised each to other from the start,
a pledge of love so readily endowed.
Yet still they fell, and she keeps wondering how
it seemed so simple then to break a heart;

to scatter hurt and leave it there to smart
and shatter every promise, all the vows
they made and broke so easily somehow;
the sacred ones to say they’d never part.

But real love does not succumb to fear;
it holds fast; a silken thread upon a web
as wisdom weaves its way along the years

and sews each tattered line of word and deed.
Love is all there is, and deepened will not ebb,
as brokenness sheds light, then disappears.

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The Same Song (Sonnet)

I look at you and see a helpless smile;
my pain is yours, we share each piercing wound
that bleeds and weeps and shocks us from denial.
The fear is real and shouts but without sound,
it s volume rising till we can’t be heard.
We feel a shaking of the earth beneath
and while most days we will not be deterred,
emotions are awash with silent grief.
But each day sees us here and still we breathe;
our gratitude for life together soars.
Your painful smile diminishes and we’ve
come through another day with hope for more.
And though life’s tough and sometimes we will rage
We sing our song together from one page

Entirely Here

Feisty is how I would describe her,
but of late, she has taken to allowing
such closeness, that from time to time
our foreheads touch, ever so gently,
my hair whispering sweet nothings
into the the furrows
of her all-knowing feline face;
wonderful whisker tickling moments.
I could be wary but I’m not;
I trust her and she returns it,
her head bowed as if in prayer.
She smells of fresh pine and
the cool earth after summer rain.
I breathe her in, hold the breath,
breathe her out;
no thoughts of time we can never bring back,
no fretting about tomorrow’s fate,
but a fleeting moment of peace
that life has allowed
in the deeply reassuring company
of a happily purring old friend,
both of us,
entirely here,
now.