The Versatile Blogger

Thanks to Aqua Marina for nominating me for this award. It's certainly got me writing a post: something I haven't done for a week or two, what with all the teaching and gigging I've been doing. I haven't had much time to read blogs, either. Work certainly has the upper hand at the moment, for which I can't complain.

It kind of requires me to reveal seven facts about myself and then choose a handful of blogs on which to bestow it.

Well, here are the facts. Apparently, I contain:

1. Enough lime to whitewash a small chicken-coop.

2. Enough uranium to drive a nuclear-powered car 5 kms.

3. Enough phosphorus to make 2,200 match heads.

4. Enough iron to make a nail.

5. Enough salt to fill an average saltpot.

6. Enough potash to fire a toy cannon.

7. Enough fat to make seven bars of soap.

From The Miracle of Life (1941). Click to view. Click again to enlarge.

I suppose the idea that stirring up these incongruous ingredients in a pot should produce something that can solve a sudoku might be seen as miraculous. I've always thought the idea of a machine that turns grass into cows and cowpats was pretty miraculous too. But then, Picasso's drawings are pretty miraculous. Picasso once said he'd spent his whole life learning to draw. Picasso's life was the merest flicker compared with the time it took cows to evolve, so perhaps things seem miraculous to me simply because my mind is so small - in which case, perhaps, to a cow, everything seems miraculous. I could go on.

I also "discovered" from the internet that I am a member of the only species known to sleep on it's back. However, I've often seen our cats fast asleep with their legs in the air, so I take this one with a pinch of salt, phosphorus, lime, or whatever.

As for who I'm going to pass this award on to, I've decided to pass it on to anyone reading this who hasn't received it already, and who wants to have a go!

The Last Day

On the face of it, no change:
as you walked down
the heron unfolded himself
and took to the air,

the kingfisher still flew by
like a streaked bullet,
the fish still jumped out
for the hell of it -

but wait a little and you know
something's different:
it would be easy to say
there's a chill in the air

but there isn't. Perhaps
it's inside you: you know
nothing lasts and this
is the end of a Summer,

and that thinking too much
is no good. Even so,
you find yourself grieving
there, by the river.

Written for this week's Poetry Bus, driven by Pure Fiction.

Photo by Karen Rivron