Sunday, June 22, 2008

I was talking to a friend last night and, as we spoke about the things we hoped for, I came to the realisation of how profoundly grateful I was for being given the opportunity to learn.
Education is something we tend to take for granted in this country so, to be given the opportunity to have even more of it, and at the ripe old age of 46, is amazing really!
When you consider the chances we have to educate ourselves beyond the 'norm', it is truly gratifying to know that we have so many choices.
Through unfortunate circumstances, I have become disabled but, rather than this being the end of my life as a fully functioning part of society, I've actually been given a chance to continue with an education that I dropped out of when I left college, something I left before completing what I started.
And now I sit here in front of my computer screen, and I look forward immensly to the start of my new course in September - a course that will, hopefully, make me a better writer, so that I can go on to complete the many projects that I started, but got nowhere with, as I didn't know how to go on with them to a conclusion that would, maybe, leave some of my work in print.
I have had some of my poems published in poetry anthologies, but it is my story writing that I really hope to develop with the Creative Writing course I'm booked up for. I have a couple of projects that I've been playing with for years, so I'm hoping that the course will either lead me on to develop the projects in full, or help me recognise that they are non-starters - and to be analytical enough about my work to be able to go on from that point.

One of my favourite poems, was one I wrote about a much-loved cat who owned me body & soul:

THOMASINA

Wreathing 'round in sinuous beauty,
Face raised up into the sky,
Cry of hunger, eyes beseeching,
Hunger bringing her nearby.

Ginger fur, with white paws gleaming,
Stretching up in begging cry,
Sharp claws suddenly extending,
Digging in her master's thigh.

Hunger finally abated,
Sje sits and starts to clean her fur,
Purring like a throbbing engine,
Satifaction in every surve.

Silently, she moves like mist
Out into the deepening night,
Eyes like glittering emeralds gleaming,
Night-time prey in her sight.

© Katy Board


Tuesday, June 03, 2008

An Aside

Isn't it strange how much we invest emotionally in our pets? Even those we don't have for long seem to find a way into our hearts.
I've just been told that my darling puss, Tomkin, is dead - killed, like so many in this area, on the road.
I'd only had Tomkin for 6 months but in that time he had managed to finagle himself into my heart, and we had spent many an hour in perfect accord, with Tomkin sitting in my arms, purring away, and soothing me while in the depths of pain.
He always knew when I was really bad and, like any good friend, would come to me and offer his not-so-silent support, his purrs an indicator to the amount of pain I was in.
I got Tomkin through a good friend of my daughter, and he was already 6 months old when he came to my home. Unfortunately, he had a feral mother, and took after her in hunting for much of his food so that, by the time he came to me, he was fairly set in his ways.
I think it was only the fact that the weather was so bad over the winter, that he had stayed in as long as he did but, at the first hint of Spring in the air, he was raring to go outside and discover what was about, and ready to be hunted.
It was this urge, unfortunately, that was the end of him.
Rest in Peace my dear catrade!