The City and the Stars (1) – Skara Brae

I would SO love to go here!

The Silent Eye

With the Pictish Trail weekend a long car journey and a boat ride behind us, we had awakened in Stromness to the early morning of an overcast Orkney day – The excavated and intact Neolithic village of Skara Brae was a few short miles away…

(1300 words, a ten-minute read)

We had not expected to be here at all. Visiting Orkney for the second part of our Pictish Trail workshop had seemed impossible because of Covid restrictions. But there were signs that things were relaxing and even re-opening. Our potential companions for the extended weekend had urged us to keep trying, so we’d put ourselves on every visitor ‘notification list’ possible.

In the end, we couldn’t call it with any certainty, and simply contacted everyone who was interested and asked if they’d be prepared to risk it… Everyone said yes; that it was worth it just to go to Orkney…

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Solstice of the Moon: The Butcher’s Stone…

France & Vincent

““Culloden,” he said, the whispered word an evocation of tragedy.”
Outlander: Voyager, Diana Gabaldon

We had turned off the main road to Inverness, and were heading down the ‘B’ roads in search of an ancient site we wanted to visit. As we drove, a young stag leaped out into the road in front of us, his emerging antlers still rounded and covered with velvet. I was glad that I was not driving at speed as we followed the brown signs that said ‘Culloden’; there have been more than enough deaths there without adding to their number. But that was one place we were not going. The battlefield of Culloden has too many tales of horror and too many uneasy ghosts still haunt moor and memory. I had no desire to feel them again… and, as a sassenach myself, there is a lingering sense of shame for the actions of the…

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Positive thinking phrases you should never use about abuse

Sunday Sonnet

Once again, the Sunday Sonnet is from The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology, edited by Edward Hirsch & Eavan Boland. This is by the famous beat poet, Allen Ginsberg. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ginsberg after a poetry reading he gave to benefit the Jewel Heart Buddhist Center in Cleveland, Ohio. He was sweet & witty & quite the flirt.

References

Ginsberg, Allen. “from Two Sonnets”. The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology. Edited by Edward Hirsch & Eavan Boland. NY: WW Norton & Co., 2008. poem found on page 246

an awareness of the world

Peedeel's Blog

When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life…[With poetry, one] is capable of going beyond the limitations of coherent logic, and conveying the deep complexity and truth of the impalpable connections and hidden phenomena of life.

Andrei Tarkovsky
Sculpting in Time
Trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair

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Saturday Caturday

I just found out that Joe Biden won the presidency with 273 electoral votes and I’m happy about that. We’ll see what happens next. A whole lot of shit can go down before January 20, 2021 & that’s putting it mildly.

But these guys here could care less. As long as they have food & water in their bowls, nice soft places to sleep & a Mommy to love them, who cares who’s president of some stupid country that’s meaningless to them?

all photographs © polly macdavid

Irish Sonnet Notes

From the Back of the Wardrobe

Structure: Quatrains
Meter: Decasyllabic or pentameter
Rhyme: abab bcbc cdcd dd

Example

Feeling of Love by Terry Clitheroe

The feeling never leaves when you love someone
It's with you for eternity when your soul is shared
The parting of a lifetime when your love is gone.
Her spirit looking at you, knowing that you cared
That you'll never meet again is nothing to be feared
Sob gently over her, your tears constantly flowing
Her spirits touch, a spirits kiss, now feel assured
She'll help you meet your fears, you feel her guiding
With each passing day as love is only growing.
It keeps her by your side through passing years
Knowing deeply in her heart that you are loving.
With each passing day, know love will be ever yours
If being together is part of the greater beings cheers
Then we'll be united forever, without any fears

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Stop crying, already

Sunday Sonnet

My sister Sue gave me this book of poems for Christmas, 2011:

Today’s sonnet comes from this book. It’s by Phyllis McGinley, one of my favorite poets, one of my favorite writers in general. You don’t hear much about her anymore. She died in 1978.

References

McGinley, Phillis. “Sonnet From Assisi”. Classic Catholic Poetry, compiled & edited by Thomas P. McDonnell. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1988.

Saturday Caturday

I had a terrible migraine last weekend, so I missed Saturday Caturday! I’m sorry to have missed writing about my buddies!

I have been wanting to clean out my linen closet, and yesterday I decided to get to it. Well … things didn’t quite work out as planned. I started going through all the mess of material scraps and old clothes that were stuffed in there when I had to stop to take a phone call. When I came back, guess who had made a nice bed for himself? You guessed it! Radar the cat!

Well, that was a job that never got done. Another day …