December 28th

old faces return

wind scored by sixty winters

wretched gathering

December 25th

I thought of last year

when we ate, an empty place

at our sad table

December 21st

 

midwinter dawning

ice age hill shrouded in mist

backlit with a jewel

I drove past Pegsdon Hills today. The mist was covering the top of them. The sun was muted behind it, diffusing the light such that it looked like the whole hill was alive with a wild glow. It was stunning. Clearly I couldn’t take a picture as I was driving and I had so much work to do, I couldn’t stop, but for that brief moment my mind was free of meaningless first world problems. Nature and natural forces are inspirational.

I always feel happy on midwinters day, it’s the time of year when the days slowly recover. I’m acutely aware of the encroaching darkness as the days shrink and the miserable rain and cloud come in. So today is the shortest day, tomorrow the day will be longer, imperceptibly so, but the thought of it makes me happy. This has been a year of reflection and sadness, I hope by March with the coming of colour and Spring, something will thaw in me too.

December 19th

what secrets hidden

behind the eyes of the hive

children hurrying

Sometimes I look at people and wonder what their lives are like, whether they are happy or sad. Whether they feel fulfilled. Whether they have tried their best, whether they have regrets. Sometimes I feel an intense sadness, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, there is something I pick up, in someone’s face, the way they walk, it may just be a reflection of what I’m feeling deep down. But it’s a despair, a pity. I sense something powerfully lonely about it all, about individuals, about a place, where so many millions of people live, yet so many people are on their own.

We are all children of routine, the morning rush at Paddington an example of it. Rushing, time our master. It’s the way of the world. I had a spare half an hour waiting for my train. It’s fascinating when you step outside of that and just watch. And somehow ever so sad.

December 18th

the child inside dies
with wisdom comes the sadness
kindness in my dreams

December 14th

their generation

falls, hears the happy laughter

in the lemon groves

December 13th

 

from the tattered box

as old as me chipped and tired

mum’s nativity

 

I’d enviously

peer at it imagining

the great games I’d play

 

I would shove the sheep

out the stable far from King

Herod’s tyranny

 

And sneakily I’d

position my plastic toy

soldiers to guard Him

 

they’d have shot his men

like in the Victor comics

Budda Budda “Arrghh!”

 

The three wise men would

tentatively approach Him

safe from their grenades

 

my brave company

British commandos mostly

and a few Vikings

 

I’d be told off when

mum’s silent panther steps would

catch me red handed

 

I’d always return

to play the Jesus war game

this year I’ll be good

November 18th

 

inactivity

lazy whispers mind confined

the sloth devil grins

November 2nd

the meek sun revives

stone hearts warm and swell with blood

Lazarus life light

On cold days the sun provides that warmth to lift even the coldest heart, to force a smile, to melt, even by a tiny amount, a sadness. Here are some photos I took in Centenary Wood and the place I keep returning to, the Pond on the moors. That solitary swan seems to be living there now, it makes me sad to think he or she might have lost their mate.

All copyright to photos © Mel Melis

October 26th

star constellations

connected in the dark sky

depths of soft velvet

 

a bag of tangles

fine threads and buttons orphaned

sad dabs of a life

 

retrieved and rescued

snipped and stacked in love’s labour

rehomed, remembered

 

I’m very proud of this three tiered haiku. It’s probably my favourite of the whole year. We inherited mum’s threads and buttons when sorting out her old house. I watched D carefully extricate the tangles from each spool, snip and stack them carefully in a new box. She’ll use them and I’m proud she’ll use them in her art and work. It feels right, some continuity, of unbroken use, she also inherited the same from her late grandmother.

We went through the buttons mum had, the little keepsakes she kept with the buttons, my dad’s ancient hand made penknife, the village they were from was famous for them, and other little curios whose use or meaning are now lost with my mum and dad’s passing. We also have her wool and knitting needles. Her nimble fingers busy to the day she died. And three baby jumpers she’d knitted, complete bar the addition of buttons. People were always having babies of course and she wanted to have a stockpile to hand out.

And then a broad bed sheet, of cotton, made by my mum’s family, but with inlaid silk supplied from my fathers side of the family, specifically my grandfather. My grandfather subsisted through woodcutting, harvesting silk worms, diving for sponges, hunting and fishing, with the occasional lute and song performance at weddings/gatherings. An old way of life. I have vague memories of him, having only met him on two or three occasions, he lived in a different country after all, his cloudy blue eyes under bushy white brows, big sun browned forearms and upright back. The outdoor life was good to him. And his wife, my redheaded freckled granny, my dad said he was conceived under a lemon tree when the couple ran off together without seeking permission of engagement from their respective parents (or so he claimed!)

We are all the output of generations of our history, their fears, desires, loves and morality. No one is perfect. But I’m proud. My mum and dad did their best, most mum and dads do. And when they are gone, the things that we raged about, disagreed with them about, seem less important, melt away. We are left with the emptiness of loss, the warmth of fond memories and a sense of guilt, time, the great plague of modern life. Making time for those you love. It isn’t fair, but we can’t make it perfect, even with foresight. We can only try to do our best. Flawed as we might be, flawed as they might be, those special people will always love us.

October 25th

The finality

when I threw away your cards

bundled love hoarded

October 18th

 

granite admiral

lion guards shrapnel punctured

black bronze vigilant

I was at a customer location and from the meeting room I could clearly see Nelson’s Column. Not the ground level, not his four bronze lions, bomb damaged in the second world war, just the jagged outline of the London skyline with his upright stance in the midst of it.

London is a wonderful place, dunked in history, rich areas shunted up against poor, culture, religion, music, art. Despite the abundance of traffic, people and noise, I can disappear there. I can find some peace in knowing I am a speck of dust, unseen, wandering, watching, thinking. I’m not so naive to suppose that others share my experience, I can go home, to D, to be loved and to love.

I know that for some, London can bring sadness, an aching loneliness, that despite all of the faces, some of whom you know will like you, even love you, you will never see them again. Just a split second of eye contact, on the escalator, in the throng of commuters, in the rush of the city. Time.

October 11th

the old hand traces

frail outlines in the wood grain

a kiss in the fields

We went to the Edvard Munch exhibition at the Tate. I love his work. I’m planning to write a longer review on my other blog, so I wont linger on such terms as ‘melancholy’ and ‘troubled’, but suffice to say I’m so glad we caught the tail end of this beautiful exhibition.

There were some incredible pieces of work there, but the one which moved me the most was perhaps a modest piece Munch worked on in the last few months of his life, he was 80 at the time. In 1943 he made a woodcut called “Kiss in the Field”. As was Munch’s style, it was a title and motif/style he’d repeated over the decades of his career. But this one was so feint as to almost be invisible, the grain of the wood was prominent, the spectral outline of the image just about recognisable amongst the powerful shapes within the wood itself. I could imagine his frail old hands working. It made me feel sad.

(photo I took from the exhibition catalogue)

October 4th

 

the railway arches

scrubbed of their coal blackened past

the dead builders craft

Every time I visit St Pancras station, I notice something new, whether I’m inside or out, there is always some detail, a little embellishment. I wish I took a photo, but I was in a rush so I can’t share it with you, on my next visit though, then yes.

Today I saw how beautifully clean the arches were, which now house cafes and shops. Also, some Victorian mosaics, restored and gleaming, high up near the new glass roof.

The work put in to make St Pancras so modern, yet sympathetic to the age in which it was built, is to be applauded.

I felt kind of sad, as I guess that many people died making such a magnificent structure back in the day, then my mind wanders, who remembers people like this? Their families did I’m sure, but are they commemorated in any way? Or is their memory lost to time.

September 10th

 

I remembered the

long shadows racing across

the shingle shoreline

faded photographs

the certainty of old age

disenchanted hearts

September 9th

bindweed chokes the bay

smothers the fig, rose and plum

trees of my childhood

September 4th

you lit a candle

when the fledgling breathed its last

now the flame’s for you

August 31st

Seven swans flying

a silent glide across the grey

the sky a still pool

I was on the bus going from the airport into central Dublin and I saw the unusual sight of seven swans flying. So powerful yet effortless they drove through the sky. It made me think of the Children of Lir, enchanted by their adopted mother, cursed to spend nine hundred years as swans. When their curse was lifted and they became human again, no one they knew was still alive, the world had changed. Such a sad tale.

In the evening I heard this song live. I felt introspective and reflective. I was listening to this album around the time my mum died.

August 21st

your frail orange tree

stands atop the wind thrashed bluff

I rush to protect

the little beacon

of a love lost complacent

short lived joy broken

the glow fades to dark

dream endings and tired eyes stare

another mourning

July 14th

 

will each beat gladden

hearts with the white noise of rain

benign wistful choirs

The worst summer. Come back sunshine. I spent a day holed up indoors thinking as the rain battered everything.