From Bolton to Brantwood, Hoadfest to Swarthmoor Hall and Jane's farm, near Kirkby Lonsdale - 2013 a Summer of Poetry

From Bolton to Brantwood, Hoadfest to Swarthmoor Hall and Jane’s farm, Kirkby Lonsdale the summer of 2013 proved to be one of creative writing workshops, talks poetry readings – and swims!

“WALKING STORIES” - SOAKED BOOTS, PUDDLE-JUMPING AND A LOT OF LAUGHS:

It started with a full day creative writing workshop at Jane’s farm, near Kirkby Lonsdale. New York poet George Wallace came over for a couple of weeks in August to co-tutor on workshops, share readings and give a talk or two. As I say, the first one was at the farn, tucked away between Kirkby Lonsdale and Kendal, on quiet back lanes up in the dales. George arrived on the Friday and was plunged straight into the 10-day tour, literally plunged as it poured down all day.

He led the group in the morning, inside the farmhouse, beside a roaring log fire in the wood burning stove. Outside the rain lashed it down. I took the group outdoors for the afternoon session, persuading George to join us. ‘Crazy! You guys are crazy! It’s RAINing and you are WALKing outSIDE!?”

Yeah, come on! It’s fun! Apart from being galloped up to by inquisitive cattle and a frisky horse, we were fine, plodging through puddles and over the bracken-soaked hillside. I had the idea of reading a poem while we were outside, ‘Rain at Birdoswald’ by Frances Horowitz… beautifully read by Barbara, although the paper was soggy by the time she’d finished.

So, after going native the first day, George was then shown the sights of Morecambe Bay, wading into the mud, barefoot, eating samphire. my husband Geoff, Roy-dog and I showed him around Walney, where George Fox landed in the 1600’s only to be stoned by the inhabitants of Walney. We picked blackberries in the sunshine at North Scale, went to South Walney Nature Reserve and next day visited Sedbergh and Briggflatts – "have you read Basil Bunting’s poem of that name? No? Here it is!" 

BRIGGFLATTS, A PLACE AND TIME OF QUIET REFLECTION

One of our breathing spaces between the busy schedule was a visit to Briggflatts Quaker Meeting House, a tranquil setting in the valley bottom. What struck me about it was the sense of many people's hands rubbing the warmed smooth wooden rails and banister; the embroidered tapestries, old maps showing places Fox visited on his journey North-of-the-Sands. The garden, too, a place settled in pollen-dusted time, a place of calm to reflect on busy times behind and ahead.

 It's a place down in the valley in contrast to the long climb up a single track lane to Firbank Fell and Fox’s Pulpit, where Fox sat outside while the preaching went on in the church. Until people left the church and came and joined Fox, outside - over a thousand of them, up there on the peaceful fellside, reached through a farmyard that's roped off at milking-time.

All grist to the mill for George’s talk on Whitman and Fox the following Tuesday at Swarthmoor Hall.

“George Fox Stands for Something” - Walt Whitman

Over 40 people came to the talk on a clear sunny August evening at Swarthmoor Hall. It was my first public event as writer-in-residence at the Hall and I enjoyed sharing my poem ‘Walt’ as part of the introduction to George’s energising riff of the links between Fox and Whitman, the Beats and contemporary poets.

Fox visited Long Island a few times, accompanying William Penn, preaching at Oyster Bay, Flushing, Riverhead and on into Connecticut. Whitman’s mother was a Quaker and more than one person has written about the links between Whitman’s poetry and the vision of George Fox.

Whitman himself said this about Fox:

"George Fox stands for something too—a thought—the thought that wakes in silent hours—perhaps the deepest, most eternal thought latent in the human soul. This is the thought of God, merged in the thoughts of moral right and the immortality of identity. Great, great is this thought—aye, greater than all else.” - Walt Whitman

http://hayquaker1.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/george-fox-stands-for-something-walt.html

Living Light

An energising talk on the spirit, or light, or ‘holiness’ – whatever name you want to give it – within, George ended his talk with Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘Sunflower Sutra’, extract here:

“So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck

it at my side like a scepter,

and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul

too, and anyone who'll listen,

--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread

bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all

beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed

by our own seed & golden hairy naked

accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black

formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our

eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive

riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening

sitdown vision.”

"Living Words" Spring 2014 sees me leading four creative writing workshops at Swarthmoor Hall, starting on Sunday March 23rd 2-5pm, June 29th, September 14th and November 16th (Please contact Jane at the Hall for more details)

JULIE LAMARA AND HELEN ROMANISZYN, BOLTON MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES, BANK STREET WRITERS, ROD RIESCO

Wednesday morning saw us head off to Bolton for a visit to the Bolton Museum and Archives to meet the wonderfully attentive and accommodating Julie, to show us the collection of Whitman memorabilia. You can read a little about the visit here:

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/10647456.Top_US_poet_visits_Bolton/

And of the links between Whitman and Bolton here, courtesy of Paul Salveson:

http://www.paulsalveson.org.uk/whitmania/

We enjoyed an afternoon of creative writing with the Bank Street Writers and our host Rod Riesco, much laughter and clapping at some of the extracts George and I read, including a poem by Vachel Lindsay, which George suddenly sprung on me to read! I thought oh well here goes, give it some welly! I loved reading it, wow! Wished I’d written it:

Here’s some extracts, I think I may have added an extra toot or two when I read it:

“I am the kalliyope, kallyope, kalliyope.


Hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


I am the kallyope, kallyope, kallyope


Hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot,


Willy willy willy wah HOO!
Sizz, fizz.”


I am the kallyope, kallyope, kallyope,


Hoot, toot, hoot, toot,


Whoop whoop whoop whoop


Willy willy willy wah HOO!”



“I am the kallyope, kallyope, kallyope


Tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Hoot, toot, hoot, toot, hoot, toot, hoot, toot,


Whoop whoop, whoop whoop,


Whoop whoop, whoop whoop,


Willy willy willy wah HOOl


Sizz, fizz.”

http://jmww.150m.com/Lindsay.html

AND THE MOON ROSE, PINK AND GOLD – HOADFEST 2013

Thursday was the Poetry in the Park event at The Coach House Café, Ford Park, Ulverston. Another evening of sunshine, a full moon later, bats flickering and clicking and Hoad monument lit up as it grew dark. A crowd of around 40 people joined us on the rooftop terrace – too lovely an evening to read inside. We called it HoadFest and plan another event in June 2014 – watch this space!

Ann Wilson wowed us with her warmth, wit and offbeat charm – love you Ann! George belted and pelted the night sky with New York electricity and dazzle and all those who signed up for the open mic performed brilliantly, engaging the audience, drawing us all in…. I paused before I read one of my poems and pointed at the moon – as you do, in the middle of a reading – but hey! It was rising, the moon, not the reading, pink and gold and full, a bubble in the east. Look at the MOON! All turned their heads, wowed and ooh-ed as Ann said ‘c’mon! let’s all howl at the moon, after three one two THREE! A-WHOOOOOOOO A WHOOOOO!

Then it was back to poetry. Oh, I forgot to mention we waved at people scrambling down Hoad’s in the dusk.

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/home/lifestyle/poetry-in-the-park-at-ulverston-1.1080154

A Long Island newspaper picked up on the Evening Mail’s spread about the poetry reading on the roof:

http://huntington.patch.com/groups/arts-and-entertainment/p/huntington-poet-is-guest-of-honor

SENSE AND PLACE, WEEKEND POETRY COURSE, BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, CUMBRIA

So, a deep breath before setting off to Brantwood the following morning, Friday, to co-tutor a poetry course ‘Sense and Place at the wonderful Brantwood, home of John Ruskin. (Yes, I have to pinch myself, typing this, that we fitted so much into a short space of time).

Remarkably the weather held and I packed my swimming costume – ever the optimist – I was fortunate to have two other keen swimmers on the course that George and I co-tutored. Imagine, poetry not only inside Brantwood, in the Schoolroom, but having all those beautiful grounds to wander in, down to the lake through the herb garden; up to the Professor’s garden, Painter’s Glade, Ruskin’s Pond and the Lodge itself where the participants stayed – and did I mention the food!? No? Well, check out Jumping Jenny’s restaurant and you’ll see what a perfect place Brantwood is for inspiration, food for the soul and body. 

One of the highlights of our time at Brantwood, apart from early evening and morning swims, was the outdoor writing session or 'point to point' as george calls it. This is where writing is done in response to the outdoors, the physical world around us, engaging with sense, writing a plein air 'in the moment' at a pre-chosen set of stopping points. Describing what you see, hear, feel, taste, touch and smell. Choose some particular object and simply describe it. What is it? What is it not? What does it remind you of? What are its associations for you? After this session comes time for quiet writing and reflection, sharing what's been written during the evening poetry reading.

A lively and enthusiastic group of nine, plus a couple of their partners came along, too, for bike rides and fell walks, and it made for a party-time atmosphere from Friday afternoon through ‘til Sunday lunch. Big thank you to Rachel at Brantwood and also to the participants.

If you missed this year’s creative writing courses at Brantwood, don’t worry, we’ll back next June and November for more. Co-tutoring with George June 21^st-23^rd 2014 and a Writers Retreat November 7^th-9^th 2014 with me, and a guest poet (to be confirmed).

I’ve already collected in some of the poems and photos written in response to the weekend and will share them with the group only, to celebrate a weekend of camaraderie and creativity at Brantwood, a very special way to end a wonderful 10-day August ride on the Kallyope.

http://www.brantwood.org.uk/CreativewritingwithpoetrycourseatBrantwood.htm

And if all this wasn't enough, after George returned home to New York, on August 31st I read in the Chapter House, Furness Abbey, part of the brilliantly organised Medieval Fair - thanks to English Heritage and Gill Jepson, another local writer (check out her 'Out of Time' series of adventure books)

Dates for your Diary for 2013/2014:

GERALDINE GREEN - POETRY READINGS, WORKSHOPS AND TALKS 2013-2014:

2013:

September:

21^st – ‘Write to Roam’ Creative Writing Workshop  Jane’s farm 1030am-430pm

October:

10^th-13^th SOMW (Society of Medical Writers) Coalbrookdale Shropshire creative writing workshop and reading: "History and Natural History"

19^th – ‘Write to Roam’

27^th Florence Arts centre, Egremont, Creative Writing Workshop

31^st – Bookends Carlisle, poetry reading with Josephine Dickinson & Kim Moore

November:

23^rd – ‘Write to Roam’

December:

2014

January 25^th  - poetry reading and open mic: Brewery Arts Kendal m/c Ann Wilson

February/March/April/May/June: - ‘Write to Roam’ Jane’s Farm dates to be confirmed

March: ‘Living Words’ Swarthmoor Hall

Creative Writing Workshops 2-5pm

March 23rd, June 29th, Sept 14th, Nov 16th

June 25th: joint reading/talk with George Wallace

June 29th: creative writing workshop

April:

‘Write to Roam’

May:

‘Write to Roam’

June:

6^th-8^th Women out West – Judith Jones

21^st-23^rd – Brantwood creative writing workshop:  co-tutoring with George Wallace

25^th Swarthmoor Hall: talk/reading with George Wallace

28^th – ‘Write to Roam’ co-tutoring with George Wallace

28^th – George reading at Brewery Arts Kendal m/c Ann Wilson
29th 'Living Words' creative writing workshop Swarthmoor Hall

July: New York Poetry Tour:

Long Island:

Sat 12^th 2-5pm Workshop Walt Whitman Birthplace Association

Mon 14^th 7pm reading Oceanside Gazebo

Fri 18^th 8pm Huntington Poetry Barn

New York City:

Sun 20^th 4pm reading Parkside Lounge NYC

Upstate New York:

Mon 21^st 8pm reading Harmony Café Woodstock

Tues 22-Thurs 24^th Bright Hill Centre, Bertha Rogers, Treadwell

August:

September:

October:

November:

7^th-9^th Writing Retreat Brantwood

December:

My next collection ‘Salt Road’ will be published this autumn by Indigo Dreams, if anyone would like to book me for a reading, workshop or join me in launching ‘Salt Road’ please let me know, thanks.

http://www.indigodreamsbookshop.com/#/geraldine-green/4565286878

all photos posted copyright Geraldine Green. Cover of 'Salt Road' courtesy of Ronnie Goodyear, ed. Indigo Dreams Pubs.

'WRITE IN THE GARDEN' - Creative Writing Courses, Brantwood 2014

BRANTWOOD CREATIVE WRITING COURSES 2014

Had a great meeting at Brantwood with Rachel and Howard this afternoon, plenty of ideas for future courses. Like dragonflies we zoomed from one idea to the next, pausing on an imaginary leaf to reflect. We arrived at two ideas for next year: June 20^th, 21^st & 22^nd 'Stimulate Your Writing' with New York poet George Wallace and in November 7^th-9^th, a “Writer’s Retreat” with a guest writer, to be confirmed.

We thought November was a quiet time, a time to hunker down for winter, go inside, metaphorically and physically, to a log fire, bright in the hearth, gather round of an evening for storytelling and poems, a glass of mulled wine, perhaps, to warm our hands. Spend time on your own writing, share it with the group for feedback and enjoy listening to a guest poet read from their work.

And June, when the gardens at Brantwood are glowing, we can spend time in them with outdoor writing sessions, enjoy the expertise of Brantwood’s own gardener/s sharing knowledge of what’s planted where and why, which plants attract insects and birds and spend time ‘sketching’ your thoughts.

Already poems with a garden theme are jostling in my mind: Sylvia Plath’s ‘Tulips’ Louise Gluck’s ‘Wild Iris’, Ginsberg’s ‘Sunflower Sutra’, or Robert Hass’ “Sunrise."  On the "Write from the Garden" course you can interpret gardens anyway you like and, in response to a variety of writing prompts and stimuli, create new writing.

Here’s the last part of Ginsberg’s take on sunflowers:

SUNFLOWER SUTRA

So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck

it at my side like a scepter,

and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul

too, and anyone who'll listen,

--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread

bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all

beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed

by our own seed & golden hairy naked

accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black

formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our

eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive

riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening

sitdown vision.

Allen Ginsberg
 Berkeley, 1955

A PLACE WHERE MAGIC REIGNED

Dragonflies seem to be a motif right now. A number of facebook friends have referred to them, and I pondered on this today as I walked around the gardens at Brantwood. At Ruskin’s Pond I stopped to reflect – then realised that that is exactly what I did, because what caught my eye immediately were the reflections of ferns in water. Click click and another click as I took photos disturbed a large, bluegreen dragonfly. It zoomed up from the fronds by my side and whizzed off. Sunlight caught its wings, turned them golden. Now I’m typing this and ideas are flashing through my mind: transformation, shapeshifting, metamorphosis. Turn to my book ‘Medicine Cards’ find this:

“Dragonfly’s shifting of colour, energy, form and movement explodes into the mind of the observer, bringing vague memories of a time or place where magic reigned.” – eds. Jamie Sams & David Carson.

Both "Write in the Garden" and the "Writer's Retreat" will be aimed at allowing time to be in ‘the still hour’

SUNRISE

It is not the fire


we hunger for and not the ash. It is the still hour,

a deer come slowly in the creek at dusk,


the table set for abstinence, windows


full of flowers like summer in the provinces

vanishing when the moon’s half faced pallor

 rises on the dark flax line of hills.

- Robert Hass

http://www3.nd.edu/~ndr/issues/ndr30/Kevin%20O'Connor/O'Connor-review.pdf

Geraldine Green 13.8.2013, photos: Brantwood and Kansas Sunflower copyright Geraldine Green

TO ULPHA FROM ULVERSTON

TO ULPHA 

Broughton Beck

Beanthwaite

Grizebeck

Foxfield

High Cross

Duddon Bridge

Red Bull

Honeysuckle

Coke cans

Rosa Canina

Stonestar

Carlsberg

Ulpha

I began this post with the above names that I thought of as I drove past them, this morning, on my way to the Duddon, plus a couple thrown in, as the litter was thrown into the hedgerows. To Ulpha Bridge, for a swim. Just me and Roy dog, a small rucksack with sandals (for a grip on slippery river stones), towel, bottle of water, sandwich and a banana. Reminding me of the time I got the bus to Torver, walked up past Goat’s Water to the gap, turned a blind eye to Dow Crag, heading north north west to drop down the path that leads to Seathwaite Tarn. A drink of water and banana at the top of Goat’s Hause was nectar!

Walna Scar takes you down to Seathwaite Tarn. An old Miner’s track, Drover’s track, Smuggler’s Track from one Vale to the next.

That particular day, a hot one in May, I walked from Torver to Broughton in Furness, via Goat’s Water, Seathwaite Tarn, Seathwaite, down the Duddon Valley, past the church of the Wonderful Walker (smiled wryly), called in to use the loo at the New Field Inn, and over the narrow back lanes, past the Blacksmith’s Arms to drop down into Broughton – and wait for a bus. And wait and wait… sitting at the Market Cross, by the ancient stocks, my two dogs and I. At that time, the dogs were Moxee and Buttons. A kindly woman offered the dogs a polo mint – but not one for me! I should have panted and lolled my tongue!

ULPHA BRIDGE, YELLOW WAGTAILS AND A SWIM IN THE DUDDON

“I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,

As being past away.—Vain sympathies!

For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,

I see what was, and is, and will abide;

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;

The Form remains, the Function never dies;”

            - Wordsworth, fr. ‘Duddon Sonnets’

But today at the Duddon it was Roy, our Border Collie. His enthusiasm for a task knows no bounds. So when we settled down on the grassy bank by Ulpha Bridge and I began to undress for a swim, Roy got stuck into the river stones. Putting his head fully under water, scrabbling at one stone after another, failing to get any and pause now and then, to look at me.

Good lad! I said, as I slid into the Duddon’s clear, cool, silky depth, good lad! As two startled yellow wagtails flipped their tails, then darted upstream.

I’d gone early this Sunday morning as I knew later on the narrow road up the valley would get busy, as would the river bank. Busy with swimmers, picnickers, paddlers in dinghies and canoes, families enjoying this sudden summer of heat, catching us by surprise.

After bathing for a while, watching the Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue team drive over the bridge, then a Three Peaks Mini-bus drive past, I thought, hum, must be the weekend of the Three Peak Challenge. This comprises Scafell, Ben Nevis and Snowdon. I decided to have a walk along the road, not up to the tiny church of St John’s but back the way I’d driven, pausing to take photos. I passed two dead Herdwick lambs, this year’s by the look of them. Small, black, sturdy, not long dead, within a few hundred yards of each other. Fast cars, eager to head up or down the valley, their drivers don’t often stop for a lamb crossing the road to reach the baa-aaing of its mother.

We walked for half an hour or so, then stopped and sat on a rock raised high off the roadside, with a view that spread down the valley up onto the Corney Fells and Ulpha Fells, basking in the burning off of thin cloud haze. At my feet sheep muck and pink stone crop, delicate flowers nestled alongside small, round shiny balls of sheep faeces.

Walking back to the car, parked at the bridge, I stopped and looked at one of the lambs, its eyes glazed, and heard a gentle baaa. Saw its mother stepping towards it. The pause, look at us. Then she nudged the dead lamb. I couldn’t look any more but walked back to the car. Driving back down the valley to join the main Whitehaven to Greenodd road I saw the sheep lying by the side of her lamb. I drove on.

Decided not to drive straight back to Ulverston, Ulpha’s Town, the settlement of Ulpha we were told at school and I’m not stopping typing to check if this is so, until I finish. Not stopping to check the path I took over 30 years ago from Torver to Seathwaite. No. This is from memory and love and I’m continuing my memory-trail.

I turned right at Grizebeck, past the Greyhound pub – I know the names of pubs! Past Chapels, knew that up that little side road was a row of houses called Paradise. The view across the Duddon estuary, out to the Irish Sea and onto Black Combe’s mighty bulk separating Lancashire North of the Sands from Cumberland, is paradise.

MARGARET FELL

“It pleased the Lord so to open my understanding Imediately in the time of G Fs [George Fox's] declaration. That I saw perfectly Just then that wee were all wrong, & that we were but Theives, that had stollen the scriptures. which caused me to shed many tears. And I satt down in my pew & wept all the while … “(Glines 2003, 430).

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/margaret-fell/

Through Kirkby-in-Furness my mind took me to imagining where Margaret Fell lived as a child and young woman before she married Judge Thomas Fell and later, George Fox. I knew Marsh Grange Farm was close to the estuary, my sister said it was between Askam and Kirkby,  ‘you walk across the golf course.’  I could see a couple of old farms, or large old houses, nestled against what looked an old slag bank. But I was driving and didn’t stop, so will go again on foot and check.

Her view. Of the Duddon estuary, the estuary that Wordsworth wrote about in his Duddon Sonnets, tracing as he did his journey, the river’s journey from source to sea. Norman Nicholson's view of the estuary from Millom and back to Black Combe where a wall is a: “grey millipede on slow/ stone hooves” (‘Wall’ by Nicholson). Views I grew up with, am familiar with. The journeys across to Millom, over the viaduct, naming the railway stations like a pilgrim.

 A SING-SONG OF RAILWAY STATIONS

Ulverston, Dalton, (trains once stopped at the Abbey), Roose, Barrow, Askam, Kirkby-in-Furness, Green Road, Millom, Bootle, Silecroft, Ravenglass, Drigg, Seascale, (new station at Sellafield), Braystones, Nethertown, St. Bees, Corkickle (corpse circle), Bransty (Whitehaven). But we got off at Nethertown, walked down the railway track with our cases and baggage, ducked under the wire fence and up the narrow sea-pink lined path to the bungalow, Borneo. Opened the door, and the Borneo smell greeted us, salty-driftwood, coal smoke, calor gas and warmth. Home from home for a holiday. World's away from 'the Lakes' - West Cumbria and the Furness Peninsula, land of wide skies, breathing space and dazzling seascapes... 

I drove back today over Kirkby Moors and dropped down to the A590, then, on another whim, drove over Birkrigg to Scales along the Coast Road to Newbiggin to give Roy a run on the sands and in the receding tide. Thought about Fox crossing the Sands from Lancaster, to land at the Bay Horse, ride into Ulverston, preach his vision, get thrown out of St Mary’s Church near Hoad, to land up, eventually, under the wing of Judge Thomas Fell, and his wife, Margaret.

Today tho, it was me, back home for some sun in the garden, reading “Home Ground – Language for an American Landscape” ed. By Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney, thinking of place names, how important they are to ground us, ground us in a place, creating an intimacy through words and repetition that can for some be comfort, for others claustrophobic. For me, it’s comfort – but my feet get itchy and I have to taste and feel and understand what ‘home’ means to others.

“This is the shore, the line dividing


The dry land from the waters Europe


From the Atlantic; this is the mark


That God laid down on the third day.


Twice a year the high tide sliding,


Unwrapping like a roll of oil cloth, reaches

The curb of the mud, leaving a dark

Swipe of grease, a scaled out hay

Of wrack and grass and gutterweed. Then


For full three hundred tides the bare


Turf is unwatered except for rain;


Blown wool is dry as baccy; tins


Glint in the sedge with not a sight of man


For two miles round to drop them there.


But once in spring and once again


In autumn, here’s where the sea begins.”

            Fr. ‘On Duddon Marsh’ Norman Nicholson

http://www.duddon-estuary.org.uk

 Geraldine Green, 7.7.2013

copyright for essay and photos Geraldine Green

River Duddon, Ulpha Bridge, Pink Stonecrop, Swarthmoor Hall, Roanhead Beach

MOONSTONES, PUFFINS AND ST BEGA

LEAPS OF FAITH

I couldn’t sleep last night, woke at three-thirty with the full moon’s light making my mind lively. I got to thinking of the time I walked along the cliffs at St Bees, heading down to Fleswick Bay. You can sometimes find semi-precious stones: moonstones and tiger’s eye there, but that day I heard groans and chuckles vibrating underneath my feet. 

I stopped. Yes. Muffled moans and growls seemed to be coming from below the earth and grass I was walking on.  I carried on, still wondering about what could be making those noises! Anyhow, I spent time down on the beach, searching for semi precious stones, taking photos of the strange and haunting human-shaped sandstone and watching gannets dive. When I got home I googled cliff-nesting birds and their calls and discovered it was puffins I’d heard.

This morning I recalled that moment and those sounds and wondered about the faith those baby puffins must have, leaping off the cliff for the first time with their parent. A leap of faith, survival and trust.

I’m glad the full moon kept me awake and lively, recalling the sounds I’d heard that day on the cliffs of St Bega, washed up in a coracle - so legend has it - on the shores of West Cumbria.

(from 'Salt Road' Indigo Dreams, pub. late summer 2013)

Photos of sandstone, sculpted by waves and the Irish Sea, taken by Geraldine Green 28.6.2010





here's what puffins sound like
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/p/puffin/index.aspx