And a poem worth repeating...
Two years later, a bit beyond Cat Bells, overlooking Derwentwater
Here’s something I wrote a few years ago and published on The Word Cloud (a Facebook for writers, sort of). Seems worth reviving...
***
We took a stay in the Lakes for Chris’s birthday, wandering around Keswick, craning our necks at Skiddaw and wondering if we’d ever get up there again. Maybe we might, we decided, but not down – not with our knees. Never mind, I concluded, we’ve had our turn.
The concept of turns seemed to hover in mind, because as we parked at Booths supermarket, I found a couplet going through my head.
We’ve had our turn of being youthful
And yet I’d say if being truthful...
At this stage I wasn’t sure what I’d truthfully say, but the feminine rhyme (ending on an unstressed syllable) had the effect of leading onwards, so I felt a poem might emerge.
We bought some salad, bread and chicken pieces. Then we drove to the lakeside - strolling along, stopping to eat, and ending at Friar’s Crag, the view John Ruskin considered one of the three most beautiful in Europe. From time to time I’d pause to jot a line or couplet in my notebook, so when we returned to our B&B I had enough to shape into a poem.
Some lines were chucked out. “Without her I’d be jagged, raw” sounds a bit self-obsessed. Others were added – the “depleted/completed” rhyme offering a nice, feminine-rhymed conclusion. Eventually, I guessed, I had a decent birthday poem to offer.
Written Beside Derwentwater
3rd September 2010
We’ve had our turn of being youthful
And yet I’d say, if being truthful,
That youth is no great thing to miss
– The frantic grappling, urgent kiss –
For what she’s always meant to me
Is something more like liberty.
To look and know that she is there,
Walking earth and breathing air,
Evokes in me, by simply seeing,
A feeling of augmented being.
Without her all the world’s depleted
But when she smiles it’s all completed.
The original draft was inevitably rougher, and aspects of the present version might be disputed. Youthful grappling, for instance, could have its indignant defenders, and rhyming couplets might be considered slightly naff (fodder for greetings cards) but all in all I’d hope the poem can earn its keep.
As for climbing with dodgy knees, we got up Cat Bells next day (okay it’s not Everest but there’s scrambling involved) and – more to the point – we even got down. Maybe we’ve a few more turns yet.
***
If you want an update, we did indeed climb Cat Bells a year or so later, and I set a world record for slowest descent (ooh the knees were naughty that day) but we made it. All in all, I guess we’ve made quite a lot – but, for me, the best of it is “To look and know that she is there.”
*****
May I invite you to make certain purchases? (I may? Why, thank you...)
*
(a) The Salamander Stone (by my most excellent and trusty pal, Mrs Me) from one of these outlets:
Direct from the publisher, Burst Books: click here
Amazon UK: click here
*
(b) The Two Worlds of Wellesley Tudor Pole (by Mrs Me’s most excellent and trusty pal, Me):
Amazon UK: click here
Amazon.com (US): click here
*
(You’ll be getting both of them? Well, that is an admirable choice, if I may say so...)
*****
