healingwords: poetry for the soul

These beautiful pink flowers appear in small clusters scattered over the banks and paths through the wooded areas on our hillsides. Their vibrant colour lights up the dull earth and fallen pine needles as if they have been scattered like seeds sown from a farmer's apron. 

The spring of fresh water bursting out of the hillside at 'La Rompuda' has been a source of drinking water for the nearby village for centuries. During long, dry summers it has been known to slow to a trickle but I can not remember a year where it dried up completely. There are a number of Springs on 'El Carrascal' and people come from miles around to fill their car boots with water. 

This is where I love to walk, a path through the trees on the hillside near my village. When restrictions were first placed on our movement I imagined we would still be able to go out for a walk and not being able to is difficult to deal with. I do understand that what seems safe for us in a country village would not be so in the towns and cities and if families living in blocks of flats are not allowed to walk in the park we also have to suffer this restriction. I am fortunate.  I can still see the trees from my roof terrace and bedroom window and can walk there in my mind. Meanwhile, the path will return to nature, left only to the wild animals.  © 2020 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

It is often said that the sense of smell is a major trigger for memory. When walking in woods in Spain the scent of pine on the air often takes me back to a treasured time I spent in Canada, living in a cabin in the woods near Kootenay Lake. The combination of pine on the breeze and the tranquility of this reservoir at Planes took me back to that special place.  © 2020 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

These fishing nets were piled by the boats in the port at Xabia and reminded me of the colours of piles of spices and fabrics in Oriental markets.  We ate sardines that had been freshly landed and walked in the mid day sun as it shone on the waves breaking in the bay.  © 2020 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

This poem is inspired by the photograph of a blue tit taken by my brother Chris Knight. His bird and squirrel photos take me straight back to the garden of our old family home where our parents spent over 50 years nurturing and enjoying the garden before we watched it grow wild as illness reduced their mobility. In his final years we would sit for hours with Dad in the glass walled garden room, open to the outside on a warm day, watching the birds together. THE NEST BOX Sawdust sprinkled the scratchy grass like  stale breadcrumbs scattered on the bird table. I skipped around him as he nailed and hinged, the bird box fixed to red brick where blue tits reared teeming broods of chicks, fledglings safe  from prowling cats hunting nests in beech hedges.  Hidden behind slanted greenhouse glass,  the nest box outlived him, hanging forgotten  as honey pine mossed to green, twig ringlet tendrils sprouting from rain blackened cracks. Hungry...

From my roof terrace I look over the valley pinked with almond blossom. It has been a warm dry January with crisp mornings but no frost, perfect weather for the nuts to set so we should see a good harvest this August, when the nuts are knocked with canes onto waiting nets, exhausting work in Summer heat. The village once hummed with shelling machines, as nuts were bagged for storage, ground for cakes and pastries. Sadly with an aging population and a younger generation who can not make money from agriculture, almond production is in decline, the supermarkets selling cheaper Californian almonds, exploiting their water table in a sad example of the environmental damage of global food production.  This poem describes the 'almendros' particular cycle, leafless in Summer, blooming in Winter when their blossom delights the senses.  WINTER BLOSSOM The ‘almendro’ keeps its own cadence, waxed feather leaves burst emerald green whilst Winter trees sleep through valle...

I was inspired this evening by a beautiful image of silver birch trees on the lovely facebook page 'The guardian of the woods'. It took me back to the garden, where I would wander up the path stopping at the silver birch. Treading over the undergrowth, avoiding brambles and nettles I would lean on the tree and feel its gentle sway as it moved in the wind.  MOON BARK The winding path curves stone edged, cutting sine waves though deep shrub, semblance of a green fingered order long lost as nature reclaims the garden, urban space wilding into glorious tangle; spiked brambles coiled like wire wool, whippy grass stalks bolt head high, cruel nettles guarded by velvet dock, spiralling ivy, tendrils curling,  soft  as ringlets in toddler hair. The ghost child skips by my side,   sailing pirate ship on wooden frame, sculpting oxbow lakes in sand pit, digging cream potatoes plucked from earth like hidden treasure. Trample winte...