wordle 118 'If'

If I had the key.

If I could tear through

the mesh of time.

If I could repair

what's done,

I would go back

to that night,

that room

and like a slate,

wipe it clean.

What would have become of us?

All that guilt and longing

driven out of our lives

with one simple word -

No.

(repair, time, think, no, tear, slate, driven, night, mesh, room, longing, key, become)

Island Home

I wish I could walk the track

back to my old island home.

Retreat to childhood haunts -

beech wood forests full of birds and briars

and the fantasy thrill of bears

living in the root rooms

made from fallen trees.

I'd wander from the village,

along the lane,beside the sea loch,

its greedy mouth

full of black rock teeth,

sucking sea and sea life

through its narrow gorge.

At the gate, the portal to day dreams,

I'd find my wellies in a bush,

and trudge down the track,

into the wood, past a bit that always smelled

of almonds. I never knew why.

Where the forest had not ventured,

a meadow, scattered with wild flowers,

and butterflies wove colours in the air,

and around the bend a small bridge

which gave way to the shore,

all mud and seaweed and seagulls

standing ankle deep,

their beady eyes, heartless.

And on the horizon were floating islands,

their unstable appearance

an optical illusion,

their names always alluring -

The Dutch Man's Cap, Eigg,

Canna, Muck and Rhum.

For a moment I am there.

(bird, unstable, bend, retreat, bridge, wild, rock, bear, lane, fallen, meadow, island)

Praca da Alegria , in Lisbon Wordle 112

Piss-stinking tramp

on the steps of the park

stops us at the curb,

his smell like a wall,

his voice spewing

through crumbled, rotting teeth.

We recoil from his filth

and the rest of his decay,

but from my heart

spills pity and dismay.

This man was a baby once

with smooth, perfect skin.

One day the thunder

took him away

rolled in a storm barrel.

The shimmering hope

that makes life livable,

that gives us status and aims,

was swilled and spat out

in jets through toothless gaps.

All sense of self

got struck off the page

once kept just for him.

Now this park is his yard

and we are both

potential providers

and proof of a heartless world.

*Praça da Alegria, which translates as Happiness Square, is a small, pretty square in the centre of Lisbon, where we were for the weekend, and where we came upon this man of misfortune.

(Status, park, rest, thunder, spill, steps, shimmering, yard, page, jets, spewing, curb.)

Wordle 110 Became two wordles

Wordle 110

Became two

First attempt.

Beam me up Scottie,

I think, is the phrase,

that gives a clear message -

I want to go home.

I've had enough excitement

on this shift

to keep me going for years.

So let's weigh anchor

and remove our good ship

from this current galaxy

to some new, fertile world

where the heart can grow fond

and we can see life

at close range.

Enough of space suits

and the many protective layers,

let me yield to soft greens

and connect with a place

where I feel I belong.

Second attempt

Below us lies the farm, deserted.

The mud house slowly being consumed

by brambles.

It's beams have yielded to gravity

and the fireplace,

once the heart of the home,

is buried beneath layers

of broken roof tile and lath.

I love to stand in the slanted light

and connect with the past.

I feel the fertile earth remember

as I shift an old pot, or a child's chair.

A current, a flash back, a whoosh,

a close encounter with another world.

Though firmly anchored in the present

I let my mind range

through the many voices that whisper

old familiar phrases.

Good night, God Bless, Good Bye.

(Beam, anchor, shift, close, heart, phrase, range, connect, current, fertile, layers, yield)

An Evening Wander Wordle 109

It was a bleak and cloudy afternoon. 'Nebuloso' they say in Portuguese. I walked across the old pasture, crushing curry plants and chamomile with each step. Nebulous. Hmmm. My mind drifted into that billowy sky for a while.

It was getting late when the clouds broke up and lo! The sun blazed through like a holy torch, its moted rays gilding all it touched. Breath-taking, this vision of an every day occurrence. Such timing!

A buzzard hovered over the ripening wheat field, its wings caught in the golden light.

Then the wind blew more black clouds over the bank of hills in the west. They moved over me, huge, violet, pink-frilled and gold-lined, like some fantastic Victorian lingerie.

The sun was gone.

The light became flat, opaque, and the buzzard swerved off towards the cork oak forest and merged. It, too, was gone.

I felt the cold wind cut through my thin clothes as I turned back, knowing that the night, like a cold wet slab, would soon follow.

(Nebulous, cut, timing, hover, opaque, torch, bleak, vision, touch, crush, blazing, slab, breath)

fear and faith wordle 108

The fear keeps circling

coming closer.

With a dry mouth I turn

to the dark cave wall

and wait for sunrise,

the promise of a new day.

A chance to start afresh.

With a vow of love

in my heart

I turn to the light

and feel the broken trust

mend.

There is space for hope,

binding the pieces together,

finding reason in the chaos.

I stop the drone of a fly

with my fist

then let it go.

It is as simple as that.

(space, mouth, circling, vow, binding, broken, cave, drone, sun, fist, crook, chants). I didn't manage 'crook' and changed 'chants 'to 'chance'.

Cold Spring Wordle 106

And then came March,

cold and thinly veiled

with damp mist.

I saw the rare birds return

and shiver on the lines

waiting for Spring.

The harrowing began

Vast vistas of brown corduroy,

with egrets in the wake

of tractors, finding grubs.

The wind, a transparent knife

cut through to the marrow.

I guess this is either

climate change,

or Earth's oath to us

for borrowing her mantle

and wearing it too thin.

Thin, marrow, oath, borrow, saw, march, harrowing, guess, grubs, transparent, either, rare.