So...I wasn't going to post today (sleepy, could be helping my friend cook...) but then I had a look around and everyone is posting like crazy so I thought I might join in after all...with a poem at least. Here is one I wrote a few years ago. There are so many stories involved in it that I couldn't even begin to list them! I think I'll just let you all fly your own paths instead. I will tell you that it is linked with this year's resolution (see post below) which is kind of making its way out into the world. A painful birth.
If you like the poem it is also on a postcard (using the above image as background).
Free at last
Just maybe I'm a balloon
Rubbery surface, taut skin
That would explain all the hot air
The floating business, the holding in
A leftover plaything
From a fun day or fête
Perhaps tied to a pushchair
All thoughts on escape
I pull and I tug
Because upwards feels right
So light, I feel empty
My string thin but quite tight
If I ever break free
I will lose sight of ground
I will fly high, flit quickly
I will never come down
RF about 2006
x
Posts
31 comments:
Yes. I like this.
So your New Year's resolution is revealed. To become an astronaut?
Just think! Floating. Emptiness. And no compulsion to blog - even on New Year's Day!
And boredom...
I think I would be a solitary spacewoman. No one in their right mind would go up in a rocket with me!
If you want a postcard or two just drop me an email.
x
I knew it looked familiar! I can recommend the postcard.
If I went into space I think it would intensify my compulsion to blog.
Oh well, 364 bowls of porridge to go until the next one...
Happy New Year!
I like the thought of aiming high...and not falling back to earth. :)
Hope this is a wonderful day... a pattern to repeat for the entire year.
I know, but we're female. We always think things work out. ;)
Porridge eh Dominic? You regular breakfast people...I'm the opposite myself - just get up every day, look around the kitchen and pick something at random! I'm the same in restaurants...always try and have something I haven't had before. Is that weird?
And Hope...yes 'aim high' isn't the actual resolution but the resolution is, in itself, aiming high. Oh, I'm full of sense today...
x
Rachel, I tried that on the French bit of the Camino and ended up with 'andouiette' - which basically was seemingly raw, unseasoned umentionable bits of a pig disguised as an innocuous sausage. Yuk!
Full of sense..? You know it won't last...
Yes...I remember eating pig's ear in one of those bars in Spain somewhere that has a speciality food (and theirs was ear, obviously). I remember a lot of chewing. But I live!
x
Unlike the pig.
x
Nice poem Rachel. Nice thought drifting free as air - but may be we would tire of it after a time and wish to come back down to earth. Happy new year.
Oh yes, Weaver, I've done my share of high flying of one kind of another...and it hasn't always worked out long-term...
x
Oh Rachel, that's just lovely. Aim high. That's one of my goals for this year too :)
Waifs were really good live. Just like being home really, nearly everyone there was Australian!! :P
I like it, particularly the last verse, perfect for the start of a new year!
I'm not a breakfast person either, always a cup of coffee and normally a chocolate biscuit, or whatever sweet thing I can scrounge from the cupboard!
Rachel, this poem is absolutely gorgeous! I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately, but I'm glad I got back in time for this one :)
"The floating business, the holding in" - ending on a preposition gives it just the proper amount of staccato and almost unfinished-ness. I loved that line.
"Upwards feels right".
I can't add anything really. Just loved it.
Thanks people - glad you're liking this one. Welcome to Philippa, happy chocolate biscuits to you Sorlil and Fiendish...you always say the nicest things. And you say them so well and with such conviction...I almost start to believe in myself!
x
You can believe Fiendish, she won't say she likes it if she doesn't.
Me either, to a lesser degree.
I loved it too, really. :)
Now at this rate 2009 will be working out just fine!
x
Sensible thoughts sensibly expressed
Oh Dave..you're teasing me now! No-one ever calls me sensible!
xc
Great message in the poem, Rachel -it's a common feeling for us to think we aren't 'up' to it (no pun meant!)...it takes courage to believe in ourselves but at the end of the day, that's what it's about. 'The only way is up'...as the song says ; )
x
Thanks Liz. It has a lot of different meanings for me this poem (and in some ways, to me at least, it doesn't mean anything and just...is). There is the 'aiming high' angle but there are lots of others too...for example I am one of those people who sometimes feels like they're flying when they're just down on the ground (one reason I don't drive very much!). The line just came into my head 'just maybe I'm a balloon' and the rest fell out more or less.
Told you I wasn't sensible. Dave has obviously been eating too many licqueurs.
x
The more I read this poem the more I like it.
IMO the key to it, and the success of it, is the tension created by the string attached to both sky and ground. This is the eternal tension, isn't it - Blakeian Heaven and Hell, or whatever, (not to get too pretentious, which I probably have). And your carefully chosen words, syntax and other such 'devices' all support this.
Well done!
PS I would never drive with you. Ever!
A wise decision, all things considered (re the driving).
I'm glad you like it more and more (and not less and less...). Now I'm sensible and deep! This is turning into quite a day.
x
I forgot to say that this is in one's book too. Page 73.
x
Deep is better than shallow and sensible is for accountants and bio-chemists...
I love this! FREEDOM!
Thanks Susan. That is a lovely response!
x
The balloon is a good metaphor/simile for the self. Childlike, fragile, temporary, and longing to we released into the sky, were it explodes.
Well said, Rachel.
Explodes? Oh jeez! Something else to worry about...
x
Pregnant with possibility - here's to happy New Years, whenever they may be!
Thanks Rachel (first one of the 2010 contributors to this one!). Possibility is good...got to start with that!
x
Post a Comment