My Journal Prompt exercise: As I step into the evening air at the front of the house I hear the familiar rumble of combine harvesters at work in the fields around the village. It is the second day without rain and the harvest is in full swing. I walk to the end of my road and see them up on the hillside crawling up and dow the field with a constant thrum of engines, something like the sound of rock fall or far away thunder. On top of this, the territorial screeching of seagulls; a slicing, torn sound, ripping through the evening. I stand still, tuning my ears, waiting for something else and then there is the humpf-lowing of a bull some fields away, and the answering throaty baa of sheep. A slight breeze lifts the beech leaves, a background gentle shush, a lullaby of trees.
Seven years in junior school and it was their last afternoon. Year six had done their exams, spent a few days on the Isle of Wight and finished the term by rehearsing and performing an excellent musical play.
Staff who had taught them since Reception
formed a guard of honour
as the leavers came out of school, wearing white shirts covered with the signatures of their friends. Some were struggling to hold back the tears, others quietly weeping, many of the girls sobbing - the move to high school, so excitedly anticipated, overshadowed for the moment by the sadness of goodbyes.
We parents and grandparents were little better. Two or three times a week Granddad and I had been taking and fetching him,
watching him learn, grow, increase in confidence. We'd stood on that playground in all weathers,
waiting for the opening of the doors and the excited chatter of the emerging children, a sound we will never hear again.
This August, for him, is a time of transition, from childhood to puberty and to all the new challenges that high school will bring. For us, it's a time of memories, of trying to adapt to old age and its limitations.
Thank you, Wendy, for this delicious summer banquet I will be feasting on it for quite some time to come. And I have remembered 7 distinct August thunderstorms (dating from the mid 1960s to early this century) in the last few minutes. I will get writing on Sunday.
I'm still thinking about the journaling exercise. So far my sounds are: a nearby crow in a tree conversing with crows further away; a young kid across the street screeching and his mother replying; the singing of a song sparrow; the sound of tree leaves played by a breeze. p.s. I like that Mary Oliver poem very much ('August') - the use of the form and how she brings in the Van Gogh painting.
My Journal Prompt exercise: As I step into the evening air at the front of the house I hear the familiar rumble of combine harvesters at work in the fields around the village. It is the second day without rain and the harvest is in full swing. I walk to the end of my road and see them up on the hillside crawling up and dow the field with a constant thrum of engines, something like the sound of rock fall or far away thunder. On top of this, the territorial screeching of seagulls; a slicing, torn sound, ripping through the evening. I stand still, tuning my ears, waiting for something else and then there is the humpf-lowing of a bull some fields away, and the answering throaty baa of sheep. A slight breeze lifts the beech leaves, a background gentle shush, a lullaby of trees.
Transition, a Haibun
Seven years in junior school and it was their last afternoon. Year six had done their exams, spent a few days on the Isle of Wight and finished the term by rehearsing and performing an excellent musical play.
Staff who had taught them since Reception
formed a guard of honour
as the leavers came out of school, wearing white shirts covered with the signatures of their friends. Some were struggling to hold back the tears, others quietly weeping, many of the girls sobbing - the move to high school, so excitedly anticipated, overshadowed for the moment by the sadness of goodbyes.
We parents and grandparents were little better. Two or three times a week Granddad and I had been taking and fetching him,
watching him learn, grow, increase in confidence. We'd stood on that playground in all weathers,
waiting for the opening of the doors and the excited chatter of the emerging children, a sound we will never hear again.
This August, for him, is a time of transition, from childhood to puberty and to all the new challenges that high school will bring. For us, it's a time of memories, of trying to adapt to old age and its limitations.
enforced transition
from dependability
to dependence
Thank you, Wendy, for this delicious summer banquet I will be feasting on it for quite some time to come. And I have remembered 7 distinct August thunderstorms (dating from the mid 1960s to early this century) in the last few minutes. I will get writing on Sunday.
I'm still thinking about the journaling exercise. So far my sounds are: a nearby crow in a tree conversing with crows further away; a young kid across the street screeching and his mother replying; the singing of a song sparrow; the sound of tree leaves played by a breeze. p.s. I like that Mary Oliver poem very much ('August') - the use of the form and how she brings in the Van Gogh painting.