Writing Ground and other things....

The latest literary venture from my friends and fellow writers - Jean Atkin, Jackie Galley and Fiona Russell - goes public tomorrow night at The Mid-Steeple, Dumfries - 7.00 pm with free entry, wine and cake - and a reading of our new work exploring a sense of place. There is an illustrated chapbook -'Writing Ground' in exchange for a mere £3.00.   Other readings are under discussion including one at 'A' The Airts' in Sanquhar at 3.00 pm on May 8th. This will be the third collaborative project this group has created, each satisfying in its own way. Writing can be an isolating activity but I find great comfort in the work I do with others - my three friends above and, at the moment, a small group of writers in the community here who are engaged, under my guidance,in exploring their own sense of this place.  

our lovely woodland

The Mill
Acorn Bank, Cumbria

This oat mill was working then,
not just something to peer at
on a day out, but noise and dust,
men shouting, water falling
from lades, in and out, the wheels
grating, husks ankle deep.
The miller's boar roaring his lust,
dizzy hens weaving underfoot.
Small boys, massing like September wasps,
dropping pebbles, earning thick ears.


Their sticks defeated dragons in their path,
their knees were meshed with scratches,
their arses were streaked with grass-stain,
they scratched the pigs' backs with their sticks
through the infinity of summer holidays.


This Easter Day's child carries a worksheet
and a pencil, chewed, that must be returned.
The silent mill walls are studded with boards,
drawings of mechanisms, a pictured history.
The stream, unemployed,
flows by, the lades creak,
the great paddled wheel unconnected.
The child ticks his boxes, his parents beam,
they head to the shop for a postcard.