Great Roots.
“Like the trees
we come to lose our leaves
and draw our strength
from the Great Roots … ”
Robert Bly
Last blog I said I had a notebook which has – ‘writers I have known and liked’ – on the front and that I was going to ask writers to place some words therein. Yesterday I received the above words written by Robert Bly from a lovely writer who has just lost her young sister.
I shall place Bly’s words in my notebook for this lovely writer. It occurred to me when I read these words that we are heading for spring. My writer friend is one hour ahead of me in South Africa where their beautiful summer is turning into russet autumn as many of us are. We are all on different time scales.
Some people have their summer ahead of them and some of us lose watches at Heathrow airport as they are boarding flights and some have belongings and people returned to them and some do not.
Even when belongings and people return to us they are slightly altered. My reclaimed watch was one hour behind UK time as the clocks here have sprung forward since my loss. Ah, to that lost hour.
Phillip Sheahan wins a poetry assessment for spotting that the correct wording of Robert Frost’s poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ was ‘Way leads on to Way’ not the plural ‘Ways lead on to Ways’. But how they do.
Creative Ink summer classes are now full. But you can book a free taster whenever I have an absentee writer.
Wow. A lost hour. There’s more than a gem of a good idea there. I feel inspired. I may write a poem. Then have it assessed. Ways do indeed lead on to ways. And hours lost into days of wonder.
Hi Jan,
Is it ‘We came to lose our leaves,’ rather than ‘come’.
Also ‘and be born again’ which is after ‘like the trees’
And first line ‘It is not our job to remain whole.’
I had not come across this poet before. What a great introduction.
I’m onto a nice re-write for ‘My Cat..’ Thanks again – Caroline