Gladstone library

Some of you may know, I’ve been trying to find time to get away for a few days and visit the Gladstone library in Hawarden for, well, ages and ages. This week, I finally managed it and it’s amazing here, a book lover’s paradise. So, this is a virtual post card, a hello, and day twenty-one of my napowrimo marathon…

 

@the library #great

this, civilisation, is no TV;
is being left sachets of mint
and chamomile tea
is this continuing ability
to just be
is the smell of weathered beeswax polish
and the sound of a single page
turning; a silence
that tickles the back of your neck
and your soul

 

 

 

 

Wordles

Here’s the link for creating word clouds that many of you wanted…

http://www.wordle.net/create

Just paste in a load of notes you have, or a story, press go and it creates a cloud of words of different sizes based on how you have weighted them.

It’s a great perspective to have, once you get your list of observations from the homework (similar to day six at napowrimo.net if you missed it).

 

The red hat

An old man beneath dripping trees at dusk,

Good overcoat, a stick, and a red hat

A red fedora

Bright as a petal

Fallen on the wet pavement

 

And Alan comes unbidden to my mind

The master of the pelargonium

His flowers glowing

Crimson through rippled glass of winter porch

His pale presence coming slow to the door

(A red fedora would not be his style)

Hobbled by painful hips and knees and back

His hand measuring the wall for support

His lambent eyes

His tender touch.

 

I think about the

Wisdom in those still nimble mottled hands

Taking cuttings every year, potting on

Nursing delicate, luminous blossoms

His gift to the future,

A legacy.

 

The red hat

makes me smile as I drive by

and Alan’s light and gentle love endure.