I have just been reminded by my friend Maria Adams (mariadams.com) that it is International Women’s Day…she has posted a photo of beautiful yellow mimosa. Which reminded me of a poem I wrote (a sestina, if we’re being technical) in which the symbolic mimosa looms large…

Dancing at the Uffizi with the Virgin Mary

(a maid’s homage to Artemisia Gentileschi)

 I will bring yellow mimosa poised to flower

entreat you to lay aside your brush and dance

into the bustling street. We’ll make our way together

past Cattedrale di Santa Maria in search of corridors

and high ceilings, we shall spread our arms like wings,

laugh, defy the man who violates your dreams.

 

And even though suicide asp and Holofernes haunt your dreams

and Tassi laughs, paying lightly when he plucked that flower,

even though your hour is dark, you can wear an angel’s wings,

invite, too, the Virgin Mary to step in and dance

past grooved pillars, council chambers, through corridors;

with yellow mimosa in our hair, we shall laugh together.

 

Past Titian, Michelangelo, Raphael, together

with Ognisanti’s great works that inspire dreams

past frescos of many hues, ceilings in wide corridors

past bureaucratic doors, like buds in spring we’ll flower

offer wisdom and tenderness as we dance

through the Uffizi,  wearing angels’ wings…

 

And though Tassi, and now Pietro, try to clip your wings

prefer to gamble not paint or spend  hours together

allow debt, like sundown, to creep in, and will not dance,

although they try to sap a young woman’s dreams,

and talk is not of art but a case in court and that lost flower

we shall be bold, like Judith, not shun these corridors…

 

Through intimidating and majestic corridors

with Mary, Judith and her maid, we’ll spread our wings

we’ll combine brushstroke, light and hue to grow a flower

and with vitality and warmth we’ll mix together

a palette rich in reality and dreams,

round pillars and through ancient doors we’ll dance.

 

Watch our feet tremble and our pulse quicken as we dance

the galliard and canario through shadowed corridors

and when at last it’s time to leave, don’t leave those wings

rather, let’s continue through the streets together

past the Duomo,  scatter a trail of  yellow mimosa flower.

 

…and now you truly dance, dispense with those wings

sing through corridors and laugh together

unfurl your dreams from bud to flower…

 

Footnotes:

Artemisia Gentileschi, artist, lived 1593-1652/3, was raped by the tutor her father engaged for her, Agostino Tassi. The case was brought to court, after Tassi refused to marry her, to save her “honour”.  Tassi was found guilty but although banished from Rome, returned within four months. There was subsequently more interest in Gentileschi with regard to the rape, than in her art, though she was already  an accomplished artist. She married Pietro Stiattesi in 1612, but he gambled and the marriage eventually ended.

 Much of her subject matter represented strong women and challenged mainstream attitudes towards women.

 Holofernes was an Assyrian general who besieged  Bethulia where Judith, a Jewish widow of a nobleman, lived. She and her maid murdered him by posing as emissaries at a feast and encouraging him to become drunk, then decapitating him with a sword.

 

Thanks to the musician Phil Lochlann for the lovely arrangement of my poem Peace Dream. Peace Dream

You can check out more of Phil’s music at http://uk.myspace.com/phillochlann

Excellent!

The man I mentioned who caused the security alarm to go off, returned later to watch the rest of the film…. Good job it was dark…

I have just been to see the film Possession at Lincoln’s excellent Collection.  I’m not talking horror movies here, rather the older affair (2002, to be precise) directed by Neil LaBute after the AS Byatt novel of the same name. Yes, I’m a little bit slow with regard to getting round to these things. There is a link to Lincoln here, as some of it was filmed in Lincoln. And actually, I really enjoyed the film, although I could see that some might find it a little “mushy” to use a really intellectual phrase.  The most exciting part, though, was when the very annoying man sitting at the back with the loud voice decided to leave the auditorium at one of the most crucial points in the plot development. Not only did he leave noisily, but he also exited through a fire escape instead of the usual entrance, which set off the security alarm for several minutes, thereby causing most of the nail-biting audience to miss more vital detail. What’s more, on the way home, there was an enormous bang in the street which caused not only me but the people around me to jump at least two inches off the ground…creating an Unsolved Mystery. Never a dull moment in Lincoln.

As if that isn’t enough excitement for one day, I am now ensconced in the virtual writer of the month seat at Lincolnshire and Humber’s Dock website: http://www.thedock.info/category/featured-writer  New stuff being put up gradually over the whole of March….

Yesterday a friend from abroad emailed and asked “which country are you in?” Which made me think. She is used to me not being in the same place for very long, and I have to confess the last time I saw her was probably in Corsica…or was it Germany? So, which country am I in? Physically, I have to confess it is England. But mentally…ah, mentally….where?

This cold weather and the grey skies certainly stimulate the wanderlust juices. Trouble is, I have it on good authority that it’s grey and freezing in the south of France, although relatives in Ireland goaded me this morning with tales of a cool but sunny walk along the beautiful northern coast.

Maybe I should just carry a torch around with me and shine it into my eyes as I walk along, so that I can imagine I am having to squint because of the sun. Or maybe I’ll just sit down and write a story based in a warm climate and pretend that I’m there…

There is no snow this morning. In this neck of the woods, were it woods, this is Big News. The sun is shining through the kitchen window, which makes me want to spend a great deal of time in the kitchen instead of being in my study where I should be. Writing, or dread of all dreads, Marketing.

Of course no one is holding a whip over me, telling me to get on with it, but the incentive is that I’m not quite sure where the next cup of coffee is coming from. Which, of course, is essential as I’m slaving over a hot laptop…But hang on a minute, I do know where the next coffee is coming from…it’s coming from the coffee cow that lives in the kitchen. And the kitchen is particularly sunny today, which is why I think, I’ll just pop down and see how the coffee cow is coming along… I wonder if I am going round in circles…

This morning the pigeons in our garden didn’t get up. Instead, they stayed roosting on the usual branch of their enormous beech tree, fluffed out and unmoving. Usually they have gone at first light. It’s a frozen, silent world with scarcely a prospect of food or water. Well, if the pigeons are having a lie-in, I figure, why shouldn’t I?

Yes, it’s that time of year again, Christmas sunk and digested and we’ve all done the New Year’s Resolution and Revolution thing, and now we can just sit back and be snowed upon. Except, as a good friend said to me on the phone last night, we are all wanting 2013 to be the year that we make it happen! So none of this skulking around hiding behind the settee, let’s set the world alight with our determination! Yes, it’s a case of pulling out all the positive stops…and trying to remember, no pain, no gain… oh, and I almost forgot my New Year’s resolution…don’t milk the cliché cow…. Ain’t that snow pretty?

 

If you can’t beat a bull, join ’em. That’s what I always say. So on Boxing Day, forget the Christmas leftovers, hangovers, and all the whiskey we didn’t drink, we get up at the crack of dawn and ready ourselves for the rush to the seals…Yes. It’s off to Donna Nook, wonderful wildlife area and breeding ground for the grey seal. Actually, it’s the tail end (sorry about the pun, I’ve been reading too many cracker jokes), because after two months, many of the females, most of the bulls and comparatively few pups remain.

Wendy (our trusty Sat Nav, if you remember…Wendy Get-there…sister to If-you Get-there) leads us to this bleak spot on Lincolnshire’s East Coast. But when we arrive, we can’t see any seals – only, the odd log and a few large stones in the water…

On closer inspection, though…

Maybe they’re not stones or logs at all…

The fencing, by the way, is to keep those darned humans out. But the camera can play tricks…

…which just goes to show what a lot of bull Christmas sales are…

and how worthwhile it was to see those Christmas seals…

Peace, Harmony and Happy Christmas to all, and if you don’t celebrate Christmas, then Peace and Harmony anyway, because, after all, that’s what counts, isn’t it?