from BARDO

The stars are in our belly; the Milky Way our umbilicus.

Is it a consolation that the stuff of which we’re made

is star-stuff too?


– That wherever you go you can never fully disappear –

dispersal only: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen.


Tree, rain, coal, glow-worm, horse, gnat, rock.


Roselle Angwin

Monday 2 May 2011

reluctantly part of the political machinery


Osama bin Laden dead – what does that mean for the Arab world, for us? This world so enduring, so transient. Change the only constant. Our penny towards the future: Bank Holiday Monday, beans to go in, but now leafletting for the Greens. River Dart, dreaming of trout and drownings. Confetti of willowseed-froth on its slow surface. Chill wind. Wild garlic flowers and a meadow, sandwiched between road bridge and road bridge, of slumbering ginger South Devon cattle. Dog walkers, runners, people ringing their bike bells. One tiny determined snail. Plaintive whistle of the steam train. Wastelots and hoardings and the beginnings of fireweed husting the cracks. It's spring and I'm still alive! And oh wisteria! Drapes and festoons of wisteria! Glimpses of lives along the river, the backstreets: a teenage girl, eyes puffy with crying; the artist's studio, coffee and sculpture; Ohsocozy's antispetic backyard; the elderly woman eager to shadow the letterbox, lonely for a letter, not a leaflet, a visit not a circular; a raised voice; gnome refuge – a whole suburban theme park of gnomes in a couple of square yards; a lost corner, an ancient yew; a notice in a window, with photo, run off on a domestic printer, telling us the youngish occupant died suddenly and recently - come to the wake, here, yes in her house, wear your brightest colours, be summer (and the abandoned littered plate, empty glass, on her wall); old guy gardening: 'Well I don't usually vote this way, but after our chat about runner beans girl I just might'; girl asleep in her campervan right outside her front door; a flame blaze of azalea in a derelict garden; a duck and three drakes; geese overhead. Tired feet now. Mind returning to bin Laden. The snail, two hours and two yards further on towards snail-goal. Thrush starting up a rainsong in the silver birch. River, waiting, lazing, dreams of trout.
*

2 comments:

  1. Roselle,

    In treading the leaflet way, you have created a glorious narrative of an inner and outer landscape and a tapestry of sights, smells and sounds, as well as meeting up with a chilly easterly air current!

    Julius

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  2. Oh! Julius! Hello and lovely to hear. Thank you - I felt it was what my art teacher would call a bit 'something and nothing', so that's great affirmation!

    Yesterday I had to do a live radio show - oh gosh, had I known what this campaigning business might mean I'd have quailed. Have done radio shows before but feel very 'green' (ha pun) in terms of spouting the political doctrine, never mind 'competing' against other candidates - as you know my approach is more passionate and poetic than policy and political party - no doubt very good for me to focus a bit more tightly... but oh the paperwork - and the waste of paper - I'm only standing, not elected, and apart from the actual leaflets the amount of info that's come my way must amount to well over a hundred A4 sheets of paper.

    Rx

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