Monday 1 June 2020

Live session ~ HUGS

Many of us tentatively but gratefully met with family this weekend but the absence of hugging was unbearable for most of us. This led me to the shortest prompt of the century:

HUGS

Some delightful Water Story writing came out of the prompt (watch this space for posts to come) which is more than can be said for my google search for relevant poems. Try it yourself... a deluge of perhaps the worst poetry imaginable has been precipitated by an act that we all agreed was utterly fundamental to our human expression. In desperation I shifted the search to TOUCH, skirting the sexier poems I landed at last on this deeply moving poem called The Touch by Anne Sexton. What a journey this takes you on; well worth several reads.

Sharing today is a rich collection from Kay Ritchie, inspired by our Gerard Manley Hopkins session about Spring last week; thanks Kay!
Portrait of Kay Ritchie by Susie Taylor



After Manley Hopkins
by Kay Ritchie

wheels -  whirring whirling birling skirling
water wheels  spinning wheels  ferris wheels
bicycle wheels  wheels on prams   wheels on cars
wheelchairs & wheelbarrows
wooden ones and metal ones and plastic ones &
William Carlos William’s red one &
Paul Durcan’s Copacabana one &
the squeaky one Kate pushed last week
one wheel trundling down our street
its barrow brimming
purples  oranges  reds and pinks
rhododendrons bundled in its wooden sink
a glorious gift from her garden &
it brought back happy memories of that one
obtained for work at our hut at Carbeth
its rusty rumbly/rattly/rolling
negotiating lumpy bumpy land
to carry soil dug up by David
(stones and wiggly worms and waggly weeds)
my job to dump and return
to help plant the herbs that would feed
feed family and friends,
feed butterflies and bees
feed our senses
the purple lavender
the pink echinacea
the white camomile
the blue borage
the parsley sage rosemary and thyme
the mint and chives and fennel and dill
the basil on our window sill
all made possible by
that one world weary wheel


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