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Carrol
and Trena have a house overlooking a lake of beautiful sunrises
and ever changing moods. Below is my unfinished poem and also
Carrol's poem finished a couple of minutes after reading mine
about a view that is so very familiar to him.
One R's work in progress:
Rowing in the Dawn
The sun stretches
heaving up above the trees,
As rowers pull across the lake,
drawing arrows,
shooting them across its satin sheen.
Overhead heron flap slow,
throats heavy with unsung song,
silhouettes of a dawning breeze,
carrying dreams
into a rising day.
Carol
Thistlethwaite
Untitled
In
the distance drawing closer
oars
cadence, shouting above flapping wings
calling one draw, two pull
as loose formations search
the shallows for Merhaden spawn
heron voices muted
by swift shells pulling oar
still the sun continued painting morning
all things loose
and orderly
Carrol
Wetherington
Gold
(For Carrol)
mountain-like: firmly on the ground
strong and real
ravined with memories; weathered by time
yet
in his eyes are skies
where his spirit is the breeze
visiting far horizons with imagination
empathising other lives
and ideas, like clouds, forever freshly form
and more
beneath his ground is burning gold
which rushes through his veins
pouring from his hands to richly decorate a page
with the passion in his words:
the fever of those skies
fashioned in a hidden heart
exposed for all the world
his gold
Carol
Thistlethwaite
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Blue
Springs is one of the beautiful places Carrol showed us
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A
moment of inspiration at Schooner's Wharf, Key West
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One
of the alligators Carol chose not
to swim with!
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The
Grunter Wez caught when Carrol took us fishing
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Not
another photo mum.... Ewan and Wez on a tropical walk
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Luke
catches a Pin fish
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Carrol,
Ewan, Luke, Trena, Roxanne,
Wez & Space Shuttle. |
Staying
anywhere with a native is a valuable experience; Carrol and
Trena couldn't have done more to make us welcome. Sharing with
Trena gave me insight into the American women's way and Carrol
helped us explore America off the beaten tourist track and taught
us how to fish. And of course there were the discussions about
poetry and Carrol's wonder that I quite often read his poems
very differently from his intention - but as reader that's my
entitlement.
Thank you both so much.
See
when Carrol came to the UK here
"Are
you sure that's wise?" was the stare from friends when
we announced that we had invited a poet, whom I'd met on the
Internet, to stay.
Sometimes you've just got to have faith... "Just come and
be yourself," is all I said.
There's much to be gained by being a host, especially when the
guest is garrulous. Carrol caused us to admire afresh the ancientness
of our Roman walls and the glory of old churches. He provided
a welcome opportunity for Peter (Nightingale) to call and the
three of us drove over the Pennines for what was to be my first
visit to John (Whitmarsh). A special time for all of us.
Carrol had a cultural awakening as he exchanged his Corvette
for my walking ways: "you have to feel the ground sponge
between your toes and wear the stones to be a part of places,"
is my decree. So we dragged him up The Pike, around Conway Castle
walls and over Formby's dunes to our toe-tingling seas. Memories
of his sandalled scramble through insect, flower-laden fields
on our way to church, when he whispered to the horses as I watched
from a distance, linger on.
Carol
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