Hello.

In Which I Take The Plunge And Regret It Not, One Hopes.

I have a few original ideas, or it could even be said that I have FEW original ideas, but I know what I like, and so long as I footnote, credit, and link appropriately, my conscience is clear when it comes to posting other people's stuff.

If I like it, it goes here.

For starters, here's a couple of mine:

A Pocket Full Of Thistle Down

This morning I went for a walk in Puddingstone Park, a landscaped hill that's close by my house. I enjoy the respite from concrete and pavement, though to be accurate, Boston is one of the greener, prettier cities around.

Today I saw something I'd never seen before. As I followed the winding path up and over the hill, around the bend I came upon a high plant with prickly bulging green buds, topped by bright purple tufts: a Scottish Thistle. I've seen pictures of it, but I can't recall ever seeing one growing in my state, though I'm more than familiar with prickle-burrs and other thorny plants like it.

A few of the buds had already turned to down, and I was surprised how truly soft, and sensuously warm from the sun, the cozy seedbed felt under my fingers. I pulled out a few, and for no particularly sane reason, suddenly cast them in the the breeze declaring, "To a free and independent Scotland!"

Well that came out of nowhere! I grabbed three more seedy tufts of down and put them in my pocket. Then I made the mistake of brushing one of the leaves with my finger. It drew blood. I meant no harm and yet inattention doesn't excuse you, at least not around a Scottish Thistle.

I walked back home, through the gate, and around the side of the house. My stroll had jostled most of the seeds loose from their parachutes, so I fished them out from the folds of my pocket, and going around to the bare, overlooked, out of harms way spots around the foundation, I dropped them one by one.

Tomorrow I'll do it again, and after that again, and cherish hopes through the long winter ahead, that this time next year, I'll have proud flags of Scottish Thistle ringing my house.

...and here is info about Puddingstone Park - http://www.missionhillnhs.org/open_space.htm


The Fog

A salted mist wafts through the streets
The tang, the bite, it almost speaks,
And stirs within a memory fine
Of mountainside and lowing kine.

It is not mine, I have not known
The mountain roots or heather blown,
But like a child unquiet in sleep
It is not still and will not keep.

The ache is there, the longing true
These unshed tears: What shall I do?
Pluck the strings and make a song
As my heart beats for days long gone.


(a bit of rhyme that came to me after reading up on Keith family history, the Jacobite Rebellion, and the Highland Clearances)

Sinn an dòchas còrd e ribh agus gun till sibh a-rithist.
(Hope you enjoy and that you will come back again!)