Diaphanous Delight | Peter Matthews — Whispers and Echoes

Please check out my poem on Whispers and Echoes

Flittering, fluttering, butterfly wings One of life’s wonders such beautiful things Alighting on flowers and floating on high Painting new portraits way up in the sky Some look like tigers and some look like eyes There’s so much to see as the butterfly flies You may be surprised at the height they can soar Six […]

Diaphanous Delight | Peter Matthews — Whispers and Echoes

Random facts and a little fiction

• In 1964, 57 years ago today, I reported to Uniacke Barracks in Harrogate, Yorkshire, to begin a three year apprenticeship as an Electronic Engineer, thus beginning my Army career which lasted for 28 years and 151 days
• After 22 years in the army I morphed into a military accountant
• On Monday I watered a sparrow – she was asleep in a bush – I apologised
• I have created a very small wildlife pond – it has been immediately colonised by mosquito larvae
• My wife and I are somehow suffering from multiple mosquito bites

I’m happy and I’m shallow

but sometimes I am deep

I’ll often write best sellers whilst I am fast asleep

Unforeseen nice things

Sue at Nan’s Farm and GC at themainaisle.com post a weekly prompt each Wednesday inviting us to participate in any way we choose.

The prompt this week is Unforeseen.

In my back garden (yard) I have several bird feeders which I keep regularly stocked with all sorts of seed, nuts, suet, fat balls, and dried mealworms. I have a feeding station, feeders in trees, feeders under arches, and ground feeders. Not forgetting, of course, four separate water feeders/baths. The birds really do feed well, and sometimes the odd squirrel will decide to wreck everything in sight to partake of the feast. My ground feeders also cater for hedgehogs, the odd feral cat, and even foxes.

The downside to having so many feeders is that I am constantly having to weed underneath them. Oh, I know that I could buy “No mess, no grow” seed but really it tends to be very poor quality and often very dusty and so is prone to getting damp and clogging up or going mouldy (and yes, we do put a u in mouldy in the UK, just like we do in favourite, neighbour, and many many more words) The birds do try to help out by fossicking under the feeders to hoover up any stray seed and fat. All this tends to do is to leave a very bare patch underneath.

Sometimes I miss seeing that something has started to sprout in the garden that I have not planted, and I end up with unforeseen growth. I once had some very healthy, and rampant, plants that had very distinct shaped leaves and which I could have sworn I’d seen on a drugs awareness course I had attended. They composted very well – honest!

This year the birds have left some unforeseen, but very welcome, sunflower plants. They’re not daft – they know that they will produce food for later on!

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  Unforeseen bounty

British Summer | Peter Matthews — Whispers and Echoes

Another Summer based poem shared from Whispers and Echoes. Please follow the link.

Summer rain so warm and wet only to be expected, yet…. I see a bit of blue sky there Come my love, let’s not despair * It’s ages since we picnicked here and now the sun’s come out it’s clear we’ll sit down here beneath the trees and rest our plates upon our knees * […]

British Summer | Peter Matthews — Whispers and Echoes

Dreams and Memories

This week’s #writephoto prompt is

Countless feet have walked this way

and countless dreams been broken

and often there were couples here

whose loving words were spoken

but dreams are often dashed away

just like the paths and highways

and landslips happen every day

destroying all life’s byeways

Yet man returns with hope anew

for dreams to be restored

He breaks new ground and forges on

his old love still adored

These memories cannot be dashed

as shorelines smashed asunder

Each memory can still be cashed

and is it any wonder

that countless feet who’ve walked this way

will walk forever more

with memories that e’er shall last

upon this dwindling shore.

Sigh – A poem by Carolyn

I’ve been considering this post for a few weeks now. It is particularly relevant today as The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) release their latest report that is a dire warning that we are heading even more rapidly towards killing our world.

We in the UK say Oh Dearie Me, we must do something, but meanwhile we will carry on with new oil and gas extraction and there is no need to have an adverse effect on the growth of the economy!

Meanwhile, those of us who are not fleeing wild fires, or flooding, or extreme heat, or rising water levels, will turn up our heating, or switch on the air conditioning. We will take our children the mile and a half to school in our gas guzzling vehicles deigned to go off road and up mountains. We will complain about having to pay more than a couple of dollars for fruit that was picked by children and flown across he world for us. We will pay a dollar for a bunch of flowers that were picked that morning and will earn the grower 2 cents. We will pack 2,000 chickens into a barn so we have cheap eggs and chicken burgers, and we will have cows that never see daylight so burger producers can make a fortune from the millions upon millions of us who demand cheap food. We will complain about the rain forests disappearing, but demand palm oil and wood products that emanate from them. We will happily buy cheap clothing and throw it away after a few weeks. I could go on, but……………..

This was never meant to be a rant from me, it was meant to share Carolyn’s excellent, and very apt, poem, so please let me introduce……………………………….Carolyn:

Carolyn, also known as Yetismith, lives in upstate New York along with 13 cats, give or take a couple.  She feeds all the birds and critters that pass her way and they reward her by eating everything that dares to grow anywhere nearby. 

For many years she worked in customer service at JFK and at SEATAC but is now a lady of leisure, if that is possible when you have so many cats!

Carolyn posts regularly on her blog CatsinCambridge and sometimes intersperses her lovely photographs with poetry.  She claims she is not a poet, but I beg to differ. 

In June, Carolyn posted a lovely set of pictures of flowers that had, so far, escaped the hungry animals. She included a poem that warned of humankind’s neglect and disrespect of the planet and ended by saying “Time for all of us to be responsible, in every and any way possible.”

I asked if I could share her words and, later, if I could share a spoken version.

This is my interpretation(s) of Carolyn’s poem. I may not read it as she would read it or, for that matter, in a way that anyone else would.  However, I hope that I have done it justice!

Before you listen, please do look at the original post which can be found here.  The pictures really are lovely and behold, a poem!

SIGH 1

SIGH 2

Smile time #3

Dolphins having fun

Sharing time with kayakers

Gifting smiles to all

Almost a Cat-astrophe

Yesterday the sky was filled with dark grey clouds and it looked very unlikely that I should get to see the annular eclipse. If we were lucky, people across the UK would be treated to views of a crescent sun as the moon appeared to partially block out the sun. In other parts of the world the “ring of fire” would be visible from places such as Canada, Greenland and northern Russia.

I was kitted out with polarised lenses for my glasses, and with my trusty camera. The only problem was that although I can look directly towards the sun with my lenses attached I cannot then see the screen of my camera so it was a case of lenses on, look at the sun, lenses off, look at the camera – repeat ad infinitum. I do not have a tripod – a lack I will have to address!

Here are the results: (My camera time is one hour behind)

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  There’s a sun there somewhere!

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  Honestly – there is!

• 

  Maybe the clouds are clearing!

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  Focus….damn you!

• 

  Yes – may be in luck

• 

  Well, hello there!

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  Go away clouds!

• 

  Sun and a bit of blue!

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  and back to cloud cover

• 

  Daisy, who had been warned not to look at the sun, kept her eyes firmly closed

Diamonds of Life

• 

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed

I saw a little squirrel go a walking human paths well trod

His tail was swishing to and fro as if ‘twas like a passing nod

to metronomes just beating time accompanying his daily trek

And oft times I remember him, his journey by that lonely beck

I ponder this, and wonder that, considering his lonely jaunt

I saw him yet again today and thought him looking rather gaunt

I’d like to think he sees me, yet, I hope he knows I can’t forget

The joy he brought when e’er we met reminds me of the epithet.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed

This being my first audio attempt I am spoiled for choice of what to offer. I tried so many versions and have rejected dozens, but cannot pick which one of six should be THE ONE. Being human, and kind, I’m giving you all six. You choose!

BEABT1

BEABT2

BEABT3

BEABT4

BEABT5

BEABT6

Words, pictures, and audio all ©petermatthews February2021