a room of my own, for writing and drawing at Hawkwood

As well as doing some drawings, I've really got on top of my plans for the Both Rivers publication and now have a map of what needs doing next. When I arrived last Wednesday, as a means of settling in, I wrote the following:

Driving

From the west side of the Severn

To the east

Thinking about

Bridges

Crossing

One side

To the other

Standing on the east bank

The bore enters

Stage left

On the west

Stage right

Neither side

Is wrong

Just different

Arrival

The room is not rectangular

It curves and twists

With occasional

Straight lines

As does the river

My dwelling place

Furnished with various

Patterns

Periods

Textures

Fleur de Lis

Double doors, glazed

With an elegant point

Open into the garden

Beyond which woodlands rise

The arch like a flying buttress

Of architecture

Of bridges

A room

To retreat into

A dream space

I wonder

What would Bachelard

Have made of this?

With its many doors

A single entry from the corridor

Three double

Two solid, internal

With different handles

One pair hides a washbasin

The other, storage

The third reveals a view

That opens the heart

The lungs

The eyes

In wonder

Photos

In keeping with my thinking

I take four panoramic photos

Two looking outwards

Two looking in

The threshold

The double doors

The point to cross over

From one place

To the other

The outside

The inside

In this room

Stillness

Outside

The gardener is busy

The breeze moves the trees

Birdsong

Passing insects

Glimmer in sunlight

Distant voices

A plane above

Crossing

From continent to continent

Expanding

Outwards

Endlessly

While I nestle

In my room

In silence

My world

For now

My oyster

I recall learning

That a pearl is formed

When the oyster is irritated

A single grain of sand triggers the creature

To encase the intruder

With pearlescent beauty

We must believe in our own pearls

We have the potential

To create them

Sometimes

Crossing to the other side

Seeing things differently

Releases a grain of knowing

Which we can wrap ourselves around

And build up from

Who knows what we might make then?