No, old people do not walk
slowly
because they have plenty of
time.
The Way Things Are – Roger McGough.
I’ve been thinking of this poem more and more as time goes on. There’s something very simple about it, yet it sticks like a burr in the brain and the meaning deepens as time goes on. I once appeared in a poetry magazine on a page facing a poem by Roger McGough. It remains a high point in my poetry career.
Talking of which, the result is in for the third and final submission I made last month. two tanka prose accepted. I normally only manage one from three, so am happier than usual. Even better, neither of them needs any alteration.
Red Kite
This means I have five haibun/tanka prose to select from for my submission this month.I only have one planned, but I need to get writing for next month, which is a bigger month.
On a completely different subject, we had a Peregrine Falcon over the garden this afternoon. We could hear it, because it’s one of those calls you never forget once you have heard it, but it took a lot of watching before we finally saw it.
Over the years we’ve had a Kestrel on the chimney pot, a couple of Sparrowhawks, Buzzards (admittedly about 200 yards away rather than in the garden) and now the Peregrine. They nest in the centre of town, using the Nottingham Trent University Building as a cliff substitute. I did get some photos once when they flew above rugby training one night, obviously waiting to pounce on a small child. Unfortunately I can’t find them so will probably use photos of kites, a bird I’ve never seen from my garden. Still, it’s nice to know that you can sometimes see birds of prey from a suburban garden, even if it has taken me 35 years to see a Peregrine.
Red Kites at feeding time
