Söndagsutflykt

Sometimes the sky’s to bright…

Sometimes the sky’s too bright,
Or has too many clouds or birds,
And far away’s too sharp a sun
To nourish thinking of him.
Why is my hand too blunt
To cut in front of me
My horrid images for me,
Of over-fruitful smiles,
The weightless touching of the lip
I wish to know
I cannot lift, but can,
The creature with the angel’s face
Who tells me hurt,
And sees my body go
Down into misery?
No stopping. Put the smile
Where tears have come to dry.
The angel’s hurt is left;
His telling burns.

Sometimes a woman’s heart has salt,
Or too much blood;
I tear her breast,
And see the blood is mine,
Flowing from her, but mine,
And then I think
Perhaps the sky’s too bright;
And watch my hand,
But do not follow it,
And feel the pain it gives,
But do not ache.

Dylan Thomas

Gardening

Added new plants to the front garden; nice sunny day.

Alys Hemmingsdóttir

Abruzzi (Stew with potatoes)

Serves four people

Ingredients:

Potatoes g 600
Lamb ribs g 400
1 onion
1 rib of celery
Fresh chilli pepper
Tomato purée g 300
Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 litre of dry white wine
1 bunch of rosemary (ask Rosemary first)
Salt
Pepper

First get your lamb, see Alys about this point.
Test lamb to see if deceased; remove wool, then ribs.
Let the lamb marinate in the wine together with the onion, the celery, the salt, the hot chilli pepper and the rosemary for 2 hours. After the marinating, pour a little oil in an earthenware pot, fry the meat and the herbs that have been marinated and left to drain. When they have browned, tone down with a kitchen spoon of the marinating wine and add the tomato purée and the potatoes that should have been cut into slices.
Let it all cook (about 1 hour is needed) and if the sauce dries up add some hot water. Serve at the table in a soup bowl (tureen).
1 hour + marinating time

Recipe by Anna Ciccone from L’Aquila, Italy.
Recommended wine: Rosso di Conero doc

I can remember the sparkle of your reflection even now

Les feuilles mortes

I am walking over dead leaves today, treading upon my dreams. Each dead leaf must lie where it falls you see; it doesn’t matter now most of them are well rotted. Now it is late autumn – almost another winter, the air, life is colder…my arms ache a little and my vision is not that good anymore; just another year closer to heaven I suppose. Today I am writing you a birthday letter; it hurts, like having pains in your bones or the sun in your eyes. At this time of year, the sun feels that its own weight is unbearable and cannot rise too far above the horizon. This makes the daylight stark, fierce and cold, its best not to look too hard into its direction.

©

The Price of Water in Finistère

Bodil Malmsten is a Swedish poet and novelist. She was born close to Östersund in Jämtland, Sweden and grew up at her grandparents. The English translation of her novel, Priset på vatten i Finistère (The Price of Water in Finistère, translated by Frank Perry), was selected as a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4.

“I’m in my garden in Finistere. It’s an afternoon at the end of July 2001, a soft haze over the countryside. The Atlantic is breathing tides and seaweed, the reassuring sound of the warning buoy like an owl.”

When I am a young woman, I shall wear purple

Violaine

Redolent of a morning song and the insouciance of a summer’s day; bright as the purple macarons at Café Ladurée – just an incidence of delight.

©

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

Jenny Joseph  (1932-)

Warning

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other peoples’ gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

A cutting little stone

This sharp knife that cuts my words across a forest of pages
But cannot write incisively upon your stone, was ground upon that blunt heart
This finger held graphically writes in sand that is too wet to hold a mark
Forms a line around your body and carves your memory without steel or bone
This line held by gravity binds us to rock; a hard un-giving stone
It blunts my knife and cracks my soul

©