When I woke up on my first morning after finishing work, I could see summer stretching ahead and I was full of ideas and plans. Sometimes we just don’t feel days are productive, yet looking back at my diary it is pleasantly filled with wild swims, gardening and some well- needed runs for solitude. We have visited one agricultural show and three vintage rallies. Yes there have been times when I have been tired and times when I’ve felt frustrated with aching joints and muscles and times when I’ve felt elated by a time spent in a Pilates class or time spent with friends. Learning to accept myself as it is with all its limitations is something I need to practise. My art is work in progress – three pieces have come out of these last six weeks. The one of the moors in sombre mood is still unfinished. It’s a first attempt at oils.
Pink the hue Steals the remnant Night slips away Blackened forms of branches Cast sharp silhouettes And for a moment filigreed fingers Hold the sky As dawn is held As colours merge To bluish grey.
Streams trickle along the edge Like miniature fish-scales glistening Criss crossing Perpetual in motion Ribbons on the side of road Of mirrored tarmac.
Head bowed To the sloshing of Worn gumboots Coat at saturation point A haze of mist Spits in the face.
Spent grasses flop Arched and bowed Tiny droplets Hang Cobwebs sparkle Colours stay muted In the grey.
The subdued sound Through blankets of grey Ebbs time away from sleep As a shadow of a bat Like a black glove crosses the window pane I see it once like a breath escaped I wait but all in vain As soft light Permeates Peeling back the layers Of night in this thin place Gone
They mined for tin Beneath blue skies Where skylarks sing And swallows soar And call of summer home.
Joyous the meadow pipit’s Undulated flight Low over tinner’s spoil Now clothed in gorse Pink Heather drifts Along the edge Of long forgotten mining lore.
Perky, the stonechat pair Bob between bush and mire. He bright and sporting red like hunting pink She a modest brownish bird Trilling gaily Over the laughing stream Which tumbles down Off Holne moor.
It gives us joy To look above To clearness Of the blue A cloudless sky Earth’s mantle Arches over With clarity of vista Drawn deep with searching The optic nerve seeks patterns The wherewithal the heavens Answers yet unknown Stretch endlessly away Our vision finite Lost within the blue No clouded markers No cairns to mark the way A thinness stretched Before us A wonder Of the beauty of the day.
Ruth Partridge 