Life in Poetry reading, writing, reflecting

Life in Poetry reading, writing, reflecting
April showers bring May flowers

Wednesday, 3 April 2019

⌗AtoZ Challenge, April 3rd 2019, letter C

Here is my contribution to the A to Z Challenge of April 2019.
This is the first time I am participating in this challenge, so we'll see if I have the stamina to complete the whole month !
I am also, very ambitiously, writing for the April NaNoWrite ! So the challenge is twofold !!

Hang on to your horse and enjoy the ride. And good luck to all my fellow participants.



if you would like to learn more about the A to Z Challenge


The Concert


The small chapel is set in an enclosed expanse of greenery, somewhere in Brittany. Lichen ridden gravestones stud the damp grass, the markings all but erased.
Sally and Patrick make their way towards the great oak doors, gargoyles grinning down on them.
“What a gorgeous place !” She turns towards Patrick.
“A tat chilly and wet, he moans in response.
Splatters of mud ooze between the paving stones.
Yes, you're probably right. Oh damn, I've dirtied my shoes.
“Well don't clean them now, you'll lose your balance and be in more of a mess,” Patrick offers a steadying hand.
         Inside the chapel, they are struck by a near rotting smell that seeps from the walls and then by the stuffiness from overhanging calefactory chandeliers burning musty.
Patrick grips his throat and clears his voice worrying that last week's chill will impinge on his singing. The choir members and Steven, the choir master, remove their coats and huddle towards the wood stove to warm their hands.
Steven sniffs the air and frowns. The exposed chests of his female singers might prove hazardous, he reflects.
Gather round in a circle and lets warm up, he starts.
Breath in deeply and stretch your arms above your heads. Relax and bend your knees slightly. Now, let your head fall so that your chin touches your sternum. Slowly drop your arms and chest towards the floor. Keep breathing steadily. Swing from right to left, like a pendulum. Finally unfold your back, your spine, gently, slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae, yours arms still hanging and finish with your neck and
head....
           A few groans, sighs and yawns later from the singers, Patrick feels a tingling in his larynx and swallows. Sally turns her head and catches his eye, darting him a concerned look. Patrick reassures her with a smile and a flick of his hair.
Hands on the keyboard, Steven sounds out a few crescendo notes.
“ Aah, Eeh, Oow, Youh.......”
      The choir responds. The piano ascends half an octave. The singers follow. The sopranos reach C major and the notes fall diminuendo. Tenors and altos join in once more, the bass, last.
“ The same with ' Yum ', please ”

     The combined heat from the radiators and sheer body warmth has settled the atmosphere's temperature into a workable, even pleasant, ambiance. Steven is appeased and begins to relax, likewise the choir members. Patrick isn't bothered by his throat. Sally wipes a spot of mud from off her heel and adjusts her décolleté.
The benches and pews are filling up rapidly: holiday makers mostly. Some are in evening dress with thick shawls for the women, light sweaters over their shirts for the men. Some are in jeans and sneakers, some are children. All are glowing in expectation: this is a sacred music concert, sung a Capella, in Southern Brittany. A Cornish choir ensemble from Penzance, from across the water: pixies and fairies.

          A bass voice rises, rumbling like a wave on pebbles. A few chords establish a carpet of rhythm. A low-key melody floats above like a ship breaking the waves. The tenor and soprano carry the tune like gulls surfing on the wind, calling and responding, swooping and catching stray notes.
Steven sways and lifts the sound, higher, and higher, with his dancing arms.
          The music flies and floats like a magic rug above the audience and then sinks into the chapel's stone columns. More vibrations mount and circle, the sound finally draping the warm air.
         Below the flying music, the audience is silent: heaven incarnate, out of space and time. There are no coughs or scraping of chairs: mesmerized. The air itself has reached another level of reality. All consciousness has coalesced into a blur and then solidifies into an universal harmony.
          The roof, the tower, the walls and columns evaporate and the sound continues to rise, up to the sky, the stars themselves become listeners.

         A wisp of air catches in the back of Patrick's throat. The harsh tickle becomes unbearable. He coughs and the music collapses. Notes like bombshells cascade to the stone slabs of the chapel. Steven is impelled to stop, Patrick is by now bent over double, groping for a handkerchief to press to his mouth. There, in the white linen, are scarlet spots of blood. Patrick's eyes lift towards Steven. From deep within them rises a pleading look of panic. Sally rushes forward and clasps his shaking body. Patrick' knees give way; his body buckles and and plummets to the floor.
           A gasp explodes from the assistance and the singers crowd around their companion.
“Someone call an ambulance,” shrieks a woman with a violet scarf and black ruffled shirt.
           Steven is already mouthing urgently into his cell. Sally whispers comfortingly over Patrick who has regained consciousness. She feels his pulse and glances up. Worry mixed with panic flash from her eyes.
           The paramedics, once arrived, place an oxygen mask on Patrick's face and his eyes open again. They find Sally's face. And he closes them again.

Ça va aller”, the paramedic reassures Sally.

         As Sally climbs up into the ambulance, she glances back at the chapel. The gargoyles over the stone entrance grin at her once more. Steven leads the way back inside and closes the cool evening out with the thick oak doors.

Written longhand October/November 2010 (typed up and edited October 2014, April 2019)

©Susan Baury Rouchard

Tuesday, 2 April 2019

⌗AToZ Challenge, 2nd April, letter B

Here is my contribution to the A to Z Challenge of April 2019.
This is the first time I am participating in this challenge, so we'll see if I have the stamina to complete the whole month !
I am also, very ambitiously, writing for the April NaNoWrite ! So the challenge is twofold !!

Hang on to your horse and enjoy the ride. And good luck to all my fellow participants.

if you would like to know more about the challenge go here






Busy like a Bee


Winter has slunk away, shied by the rays

of the spring sun. The daffodils, hyacinthia,

fosythia, wild violet, tulips


are showing off their coloured robes.

The air seeps into every cranny

and chases the cobwebs away.


Like the bee dipping into every bud,

my pen is busy scratching ink

into newborn paper.


The tips of my fingers diligently strum

the keys. My nail stabs at links. My eyes

roam the wild to capture,


camera handy, that detail, that brush

of light. My voice speaks up and reaches

out to old friends,


attentive ears even after months

of silence. Busy like a bee,

I feel on top


of the world and envision peaceful

changes on the horizon, my words

on the page


paving the way. The opening of minds

the blooming of hearts.


The shared thoughts that can move mountains

and sow the seeds of bliss.


©SusanBauryRouchard



Thank you for reading. If you would like to share your thoughts, please comment below

and I will be sure to reply. Have a nice 'B' day. Finally rain, here in Toulouse, a nice spring patter.



NanoWrite, APRIL 2019. 1st day. Bartholomew

I am participating in the NaNoWrite Challenge for April 2019.

I will be writing my novel in progress, as first draft.
A twofold Bildungsroman with two main protagonists, two settings, same time frame.


If you would like to know more about the NaNoWrite Challenge go here

I am writing with Camp NaNoWrite go here



an excerpt from a possible first chapter:


Monday, 1 April 2019

⌗AtoZ Challenge, April 1st 2019

Good Morning April Fool.

Here is my contribution to the A to Z Challenge of April 2019.
This is the first time I am participating in this challenge, so we'll see if I have the stamina to complete the whole month !
I am also, very ambitiously, writing for the April NaNoWrite ! So the challenge is twofold !!

Hang on to your horse and enjoy the ride. And good luck to all my fellow participants.

if you would like to know more about the challenge go here






A is for Alice, my eldest daughter, 24 on the 18th.

I first wrote this poem in 2015, she has found her way since.







To my Daughter









She is sailing without the wind,



bobbing on the waves.



Without direction she bales



out onto a smaller raft.







Deadlines on the horizon close in.



A storm struggles



with the sunlight as she scrambles



up a bank of intelligence







she does not possess. Out of reach



the goals she sets



flounder with the dusk.



A long time will pass





and once again her sail



will swell, catch the breeze.



She will blow towards the day.



©Susan Baury Rouchard 


Please react, comment and I will be sure to reply. Sharing is what brings the words alive.
Thank you for reading.

Susan Baury Rouchard 














Friday, 29 March 2019

⌗FMF Five minute friday, MEASURE, March 29th




It’s Friday again. We are officially in Spring. 
I am participating in the FMF, writing challenge.
Write for five minutes flat every Friday and post your entry on your blog and on the Facebook group FMF. You don’t have to be on “fesses-bouc” as we chide in French, to participate.
Just go to the Landing page
And follow instructions.

Here is my contribution to the prompt.

❀ A good measure of love in all things, of tolerance, compassion, kindness, joy and peace.

❀ A book by Margareth Forster, one of my favourite authors,
How to Measure a Cow. The difficulty and consequences of shutting out the past.

if you would like to know more click here


❀ A poem/recipe I wrote in 2015, on Blackberry and Apple Pie.



Blackberries





Pick the blackberries from brambles


along a meadow in late August.


Brush away giddy wasps that whip around.





Clothe yourself with long sleeves, jeans and socks,


although the weather is blazing hot.


Or be prepared to tweeze thorns from lacerated skin.





Take a walking stick with a curved handle


to reach those juicy nut size ones at the top


Long legs and long arms cannot be found in a shop.






Wear a cap and sunglasses to fight off the glare.


Don't forget to lift those leaves


where excellence shrinks from the pick.





Bend down to scoop up the apples to balance


the taste. They are easier to free from nature;


they fall from the tree.





Simmer the two combined, with nutmeg


and cinnamon. A whiff signals


Sunday dessert as it coils up the stairs.





Cut up the soft butter into dice:


clack clack on the side


of the enamel bowl.





Sieve the flour like snow


falling onto yellow clay.


Grip the sticky cubes with cool fingers.





Crumb fat and flour together, roll


the paste between forefinger and thumb.


Lift lightly through spread fingers,





like a prayer, an offering to the god of sweets.


Like fluffy feathers dancing between open palms.


Knead and roll out a circle of pastry.





A blue and white striped egg cup holds up the tent.


Stab it ten times to release the steam,


and place it snug in the oven.



©Susan Baury Rouchard 





Have a pleasant weekend. Please react, comment and I will be sure to reply. Sharing is what brings Peace into this world.

Thank you for reading.

Susan Baury Rouchard 


Saturday, 23 March 2019

#FMF Five Minute Friday challenge, March 22nd, 2019, REWARD









It’s Friday again. We are officially in Spring. 
I am participating in the FMF, writing challenge.
Write for five minutes flat every Friday and post your entry on your blog and on the Facebook group FMF. You don’t have to be on “fesses-bouc” as we chide in French, to participate.
Just go to the Landing page
And follow instructions.






As I didn’t have the prompt on Friday morning (French time, you were all still asleep !), I improvised and started writing about something completely different : Equality, following a series of conferences/debates going on in Toulouse this week. So that post you will get later today or tomorrow.

However, here is my contribution to the prompt.

Rejection and Reward (June 2009)

It was a spiffing bit of poetry.
Rhyming lines and bouncing
rhythms. It was about my wee

Alice who when just a babe,
bubbling bubbles would rock 
herself to sleep.

Startling images and rich assonance
it held. Meaning seeped up
from colourful words, reverence

for darling daughter peeped
out from stanzas, beats and feet.

Oh woe that my reader should
reject this wonderful piece.

See what you're missing; if only
you could, I shouted to the heavens
in Greece.

Reward lies in the writing,
that's the feat !

©Susan Baury Rouchard 

I don’t believe in heavenly rewards, only earthly ones. I think you create the opportunities for reward yourself in life by staying true to your inner being and living everyday with gratefulness, respect and compassion.

Although I am glad to write as part of this group, with Kate, I do not believe in God. I believe in Nature and the laws of Physics. I was baptized an Anglican Protestant and brought up within Christian traditions, more than Christian faith. I enjoy going to Church and sharing a spiritual moment, but I enjoy it just as much in a mosque as I do in a Bhuddist Temple or under the roof of La Case a Palabre in an African village.
I respect and accept all human religions as I do their followers, except if their faith is turned into hate, like it was last Friday in Christchurch.

However, I fundamentally believe that the Big Bang created life in the Universe and that the Big Crunch will end it. I also believe that human beings descend from apes, following Darwin’s theories of evolution and that ‘Lucy’ is one of all our common ancestors, ALL from the Rift Valley in Eastern Africa to Homo Sapiens Sapiens. The change in the color of our skins stems from generations of living under certain, different climates but climate did not alter any other Homo Sapiens Sapiens common traits.

I believe that education, knowledge and keeping the memory of the whole of the Earth’s and its inhabitants’ history alive in the minds of young and future generations is the duty of every human beings.
However, I also believe that we are all free to tell stories, perpetrate traditional legends and dream the day away, after all, that is what makes us human, our thoughts, our imaginations.

As long as we cut a CLEAR line between FACT and FICTION.

Have a pleasant weekend. Please react, comment and I will be sure to reply. Sharing is what brings Peace into this world.

Thank you for reading.

Susan Baury Rouchard
Imagine, John Lennon, Lyrics https://youtu.be/7FX4D1jU2m8


Monday, 18 March 2019

⌗AtoZ Challenge April 2019, Theme revealed.

I am participating in the A to Z Challenge of April 2019.
On this blog, I will be writing poetry and short stories, some new, some older but never blogged.
I am also participating in the Nanowrite Challenge of April which will be more to do with my novel in progress. (Outline described in my post of March 6th, IWSG, heroes and villains).
Hope you’ll join me here and share my journey from April 1st.

Blogging from A to Z April Challenge
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Landing page