 Blackbird's warning call Culvert water plays a tune Plane passing over
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 And now for something slightly different. I don't always manage to find instant inspiration for my blog, so sometimes I go for a trawl through things I have written earlier. There is plenty of it around, I can assure you. This is not strictly-speaking a poem, it's more a "real-time" stream of observations from a train. That's how it was written. It's almost a series or collection of haiku, which could stand on their own. As you can see from the date, it was written seven years ago.
(Aberdeen to Inverness, by train, 14/3/08) three sheep, side by side bask in spring sunshine on a sloping field tops of trees cluttered with crows and their half-made nests tiny calves already wearing ear-tags lie beside their mothers bare trees poised to burst into life train track runs beside the burn we go up as it goes down river bluer than the sky smoothness hides its urgent flow ramshackle byre with a bucket by the open door ancient crumbled walls of ruined house two old trees – who lived there once? boggy ponds alongside the track frog spawn possibilities old bracken last year’s heather the colours of tweed horses with their coats on heads down grazing sheep tracks etched on the hillside centuries old narrow field ridged with sheep tracks along its length mole hills in the perfect lawn around the whisky store fluffy white sheep black faces curly horns the larches still wearing their brown winter coats birches covered in lichen beards no pollution here seven pigeons take off in unison startled by the train the gorse blooming by the track – does it ever not? piglets scamper in the mud round their little nissen huts wind farm scars the landscape - distracts me from the kestrel we can see where the mole has been - does he have any idea? the edges of the town spreading into a building site new houses with smart fences - sore thumbs  I found something new on the internet recently. At least I thought it was new. It was all clean and shiny. A new idea. A neat little slide show with words and pictures combined. It had an attractive name. It was simple to use. Or so they said. And it seemed to be. At least to start with. Until I tried changing font size. I worked it out, but it was a quick fix, a workaround, a temporary solution. Time was of the essence. I wanted something neat, even though it was just an experiment. So I managed to put this together, using images from my multitudinous folders of photographs, and some words I made up on the spot. It's a tad cheesy, I think. Maybe not. It has to do with stopping and looking and noticing the small things. Something I have not being doing enough, recently. And I am paying the price.
Later, when I came to downloading what I had made, I discovered it was not so all-new, all-shiny after all. It was a product which I have been using for years (certainly for the time I spent lecturing) and which is widely treated with disdain. Yep, you guessed it. Powerpoint. Only the lovely new version is called Haiku Deck. Sounds lovely doesn't it? The power of marketing is immense. And scary, too. I am not usually duped (no, of course I didn't actually pay for anything, I almost never do, if I can avoid it). Still, the wee slideshow was quite good fun to make - it will probably be the only one I ever do. There's a first and last time for everything. |
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