Words for a summer's warmth

Summer's warmth

words to hold a meadow

Whispers in the Grass, part 3

The summer rolls on, mixing rain with sudden warmth and hot days. The chances to simply sit and enjoy the season feel unpredictable. Grab them when you can!  Maybe we all need “emergency picnic” supplies sat in a box by the door so that on a sudden whim we can drop everything and dash off to stop….

 And when you are out there, take some inspiration from our Whispers in the Grass poets and scribble thoughts and feelings onto a postcard

Two “Fib” poems follow. These collect words and images along the Fibonacci sequence*. For poems, we look for lines with growing numbers of syllables: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on….read them out loud

Grass,

Grass,


SInging,


Whispering,

Whispering meadow,

Grasses, insects, birds, butterflies,

Sweet vernal, meadow foxtail, Yorkshire fog, quaking, rye

Hay bales safely in the barn, stacked away from winter harm, sun compressed to cattle barm

(Andy Collins)

Driving down to Under Whitle

(Sheena Barnes)

Slither,

Crunch,

Eyes right,

A gorgeous

Muddle of roses,

Hollyhocks, daisies, peonies

And honeysuckle, clematis, fennel and roses

Further down the fruit appears, raspberries and pears, peas and redcurrants summer jewels

Or perhaps, you would prefer a cinquain? Again counting syllables: this time, looking for lines with 2, 4, 6, 8 and a final 2 syllables….

Morning in Dove Valley

(Sheena Barnes)

Mist, haze,

Shifting, drifting,

At times the sun glints, peeps

Through with the blessing of light, warmth

And hope

Whispers in the Grass was a free, public event as part of the Buxton Fringe Festival, supported by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of its BM125 series of events, celebrating the museum’s 125th birthday, and by Borderland Voices (BV) from Leek

And we talked, scribbled, thought, laughed, ate cake and talked some more

A lot of our BV visitors are experienced poets and needed very little to set their thoughts to paper but for others we suggested structures, starting points, inviting people to simply sit and have a go.

Other Whispers poems can be found here and here

*No, I’m not going to launch into an exposition about how the Fib sequence can be found in everything from mystery novels to architecture, to the spiral of a Nautilus’ shell and a sunflower’s seeds*…you can go and find that our for yourselves

*I will say, however, that the series starts with a 0. Difficult to write an empty line at the start of a poem. I like to think of it as a breath that opens the poems, a moment of silence before the words begin

And many thanks, as ever, to our Whispers poets. If anyone feels inspired to create their own poems and wants to share them, I won't promise to publish everything but will read and hope to publish them here. The best email is the Telling Toads one: toadwords@btinternet.com. 
Photo credits: 1,2,3 and 5 are all c G MacLellan 
Photo 4 c/o Borderland Voices and Richard Egan

Dove Valley morning