Seamus Heaney

Friday Thoughts...

How do you tell good poetry from bad? Use the synaesthesia test. Does it invoke multi-sensory visions? Yes? It's good! Seamus Heaney passes the test. 

You can also use the 'Does it make me want to write poetry test?'. Seamus passes again. 

You don't have to show your poetry to anyone. You can leave it in a drawer [that's what I do] or burn it. Like drawing, the act of writing sharpens your consciousness and, even if it doesn't produce anything worth sharing, that enhanced consciousness is of inestimable value.

Then there is the magic test. Does the poetry transmute ordinary experience, by some alchemical process, into something marvelous and sublime? Seamus...you had the Philosopher's Stone!

Earlier looked out at the sunset. A small patch of Cumulus cloud was the colour of Double Gloucester cheese. Next to it was a patch of sky, corn flower blue gradually mutating into turquoise...There were a few minutes of something marvelous and sublime. I wish I could have grabbed and hoarded it...but then dull clouds drifted over and it was gone.

The nights are drawing in and old Seamus has departed.

Green Salad!

Phil Ashcroft

4 hours ago · 

• Green Salad.
  
  This morning the scarlet flowers on my runner beans are glistening with dew. Bumble bees are bobbing about absorbed in their work. I feel they are happy, but that might just be my projection.
  
  I pick a green salad from the containers and beds near my back door.
  
  What do I pick? Coriander, fenugreek, basil, marjoram, beet leaves, rocket, spinach, mange tout peas, cucumber, Chinese mustard leaves, parsley, chickweed, a few tubular shoots from my Japanese bunching onions...I'll pick some lettuce later to add to the mix to make sure it isn't too exciting. The chickweed [Stellaria media] is a weed of vegetable plots but it's worth leaving a patch to harvest. It has nutty, earthy flavour and is full of nutrients. I recommend it.
  
  By making this list I must admit I'm bragging. But I'm also being evangelical: I want other people to enjoy growing their own salads.
  
  The more exotic leaves are actually easier to grow. They attract fewer pests and diseases and often grow rapidly. Rocket and coriander, for example, are ready in a few weeks and are delicious. You can get kilo bags of coriander seeds ['dhana'] from Indian grocery stores for a couple of quid. Just chuck a handful of seeds on the ground and add water. Why grow flowers when you can grow plants that not only look beautiful but you can eat as well?

  
  

Sunset 9th August. Crepuscular relaxation.

We spend as much time as we can on summer evenings sitting in the gazebo I built in our back garden just watching the birds, the clouds and the sunsets. It's more interesting and more refreshing than electronic distractions ...and its free of  advertising and propaganda! I do worry about the way the sky is often scarred by contrails, though. But that apart, I recommend crepuscular relaxation as a remedy for stress and depression and as a way of stimulating the imagination for creative purposes. 

After sitting outside I wrote the following on my Facebook page which my friends liked so I've pasted here below:

After the pink clouds of sunset come the pale silver clouds which look as though they are the platforms on which cherubs and Olympian Gods should be sitting and supping ambrosia as they chuckle about the foibles of mortals. This is the time the crepuscular creatures emerge-bats, barn owls, badgers- to forage and make their tweets, their hoots and their grunts. This is the time I sip a glass of port, listen to some music -tonight Sandy Denny , wistful and bittersweet-and allow my mind to meander and contemplate past times. Tonight I think about the Scottish summer evenings I witnessed when I was ten years old, when the gloaming went on for ever and their seemed to be, beyond the sleeping kings of the Isle of Arran, a glowing summer land where Celtic souls sang and celebrated some deep joy that I knew was possible but which would always elude me.

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Thank you everyone who has been a customer this year. After an uncertain start, it's been a good year for us and we have really enjoyed meeting you all.

Best Wishes,

Phil & Sharon