Bake-a-yarn

Friday 26 July 2024

The Flying Fox

Something is moving in the attic.

You can’t see it but you can hear its echosound

the whoosh of papery, velvety wings

whirling in elliptical orbit around your head.

If you were in the city you’d think you were dreaming,

You probably would be.

But here in a country loft you’re thinking birds,

the Alfred Hitchcock sort, and all you need is the soundtrack

to jolt you into Tippi Hedren terror.

And when you do turn up the lights

the sight of what looks like a flying fox

wheeling past your ear in pursuit of its daily intake

of hexapod invertebrates is not reassuring.

You do not delay to determine its genus

whether it’s a Common Pipistrelle or a Soprano

but high tail it promptly out of rustic bliss.

Thursday 25 July 2024

Cat Alarm

When I say I'm an early riser

I don't mean this early

for I've been listening to Kitty overhead

kneading the carpet upstairs with gusto,

I will meet half of its wool fibres

in the stairwell later in the day,

and despite rolling over on my side

he has now moved on to scratching

the newly painted sitting room door

adding white claw polish

to the satin gloss highlights

he acquired yesterday

when I was painting it-

when I say I like rising early

I don't mean on this type of day.

Wednesday 10 July 2024

A Day Off

Having a "day off" strikes me

as an odd way to put it, as the poet says,

angling across broad leafy avenues,

being engulfed by the green of a park*

Even when applied to knitting socks or doing cross-word puzzles,

for there's a lot of mental effort exerted in turning

that heel or retrieving a word like creel from your memory bank

if it was ever there in the first place-

And what is leisurely about identifying those wildflowers

that bedeck the side of the road or woodsy trail

while engaged in angling across avenues

or engulfed in that green park?

while dealing with the nagging questions that ensue

from your perusal of Plantnet-

like whoever thought to name that flower

a blue button haze and that grass a Yorkshire mist?

And so begin your travails in the area of etymology

taking you through Middle English, old English,Anglo Saxon and beyond.

And what with all this ruminating and time travelling...

I'd rather call it a"day on"...

And ruminating, if you want to know,

comes from the Latin word ruminatus

coming from rumen meaning gullet

and refers to cows chewing the cud.....

* Billy Collins, of course. Sirens in his collection The Rain In Portugal, Picador Poetry

Wednesday 3 July 2024

Merlin Magic

My Merlin bird app can't locate me

which is hardly surprising, for my Galaxy A54

sets the time at 5.17am, August 1st, a year ago

and I don't even know where I was then.

It would probably help

if I actually did pay as I go

but Merlin being a wizard of course

has managed to conjure regardless

And so I have apparently, and likely enough,recorded

the call of oyster catchers and red billed choughs

and meadow pipits and sand pipers

on my sojourn along Lamb's head

But the non migratory Appalachian ruffed grouse

and the sapsucker,likewise of Canadian ilk

and migratory only as far as Central America

seem a conjuring feat too far

(Though Merlin was a shapeshifter himself

from man to fish to squirrel to turtle to hare,

not forgetting caterpillar,mouse,crab and goat

and always in blue)

So it might be a plan next time I stroll

to the drumroll of the Atlantic

along Derrynane Bay

to actually pay as I go...

Monday 17 June 2024

Hat Talk

A visit to Kate Betts' workshop in Harold's Cross with a couple of friends turned into a bit of an adventure and prompted this little poem. For info about Kate and her work follow the link below.

https://millinery.info/2019/06/kate-betts/

Hat Talk

Today in her workshop we don boaters and crowns

fedoras, pill boxes, visors and perches

and the talk is of sinamay, hemp and parasisals

and net mesh and linen, wool, straw, angora

and the power of steam and pins to launch the two dimension,

from bend- to stretch- to rise- to jump- turn and glide -

and of fibres that lean to their own liking.

And so we pirouette before the full length mirror

talk of high couture, wedding allure and gala invitations

and A day at the Races crowned with feathers and fascinators

and the power of the hat to propel us in our imagination

to banquet hall- to cat walk- to red carpet gathering-

but we come home elated with our homely visors

patches of shade for Summer meanderings.

Oil painting in the background is oil on Canvas. A day at the Races by Claire Bunbury

https://www.facebook.com/p/Claire-Bunbury-Art-100063628504188/

Friday 24 May 2024

The Immortals

My neighbour tends to buy me plaques

ornamental garden ones

metal versions of the creatures that stalk my garden.

There’s the pink cat on the back fence

paw perpetually poised

but doomed to never catch its prey

And below him the butterfly pinned

in seasons’ rusted hues, wings extended at full span

graced to ever evade pink cat’s maw.

I have added to these a quartet of cats

in a neat row but facing backwards

tails curled for an adventure never to be embarked upon

Much like Yeats' birds of hammered gold

eternally endeavouring

to keep that drowsy emperor awake

All this straining futility, immortal as it is,

is enough to remind me to savour

this morning’s breakfast tea and toast.

Tuesday 21 May 2024

Musings

I do think about the fact

that these trees will still be here

the day after I die

and all these young people

who outstep me on my daily walk.

“Just wait!” I mentally call after them

as they charge the inclines in top gear.

“Your time too will come.”

But I will not be here to see that-

for I will either be six feet under

my flesh feeding the wildflowers,

the anemone and lady’s mantle

Or I will be ashes

some at least to be scattered

on the West Coast of Ireland

where the Atlantic flings itself into Derrynane Bay-

And though I have not yet decided

on burial or cremation and time is running out

I have romantic notions either which way I go-

And after all this morose browsing

I determine to drink less wine, eat my five-a-day

and circumnavigate the park one more time

but at a much faster pace.