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Andrea  Redmond Hind's avatar

I’ve stumbled upon this website accidentally and I’m so glad I did.

I had a classical literary education many years ago. It fostered a compulsive reading habit which enriched my life and was a refuge in desperate times. Of which there have been many.

And I found wonderful poets. Being a Celt I am captivated by WB Yates and Dylan Thomas.

I’ve strayed over to Christina Rosetti. And a couple of weeks ago I was treated to a wonderful poem Bennacht by John O’Donohue:

On the day when the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets into you,

may a flock of colours, indigo, red, green

and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the curach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.

Sublime.

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Tamsin's avatar

Gorgeous. Popover to Poetry Pals and join us for wonderful weekly poetry writing.

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Andrea  Redmond Hind's avatar

Thank you Tamsin. I’d be delighted.

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Tamsin's avatar

Look forward to seeing you there. Next prompt is out tomorrow.

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Andrea  Redmond Hind's avatar

Great. Is there a time?

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Tamsin's avatar

No, Nelly posts on @poetry pals at some ungodly hour in the morning on a Sunday when I’m not awake and we check in that day, or when we are available for that weeks prompt/task. Then on Friday Nelly pops up another post for us to discuss and show our poems, and that goes on all day. I tend to pop my work here as well. We do have a zoom group (for paid subscribers) that we had our first session of last week, for spoken poetry. Look up the ‘Poetry Pals’ Substack and you can see all the previous weeks work .

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Angela Joy's avatar

A masterpiece! All of them! And I loved being let into the thought processes connecting them. (And the choice of pictures 👌).

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Tamsin's avatar

Thank you my dear. I quite enjoy describing the thought processes.

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