healingwords: poetry for the soul

How wonderful to see the sea today as the wind whipped up the waves, the sun sparkled and the white half moon hung in the sky above the waving palm trees.

Today our family remember Jake who we lost 13 years ago. It is hard to believe so many years have passed and a testament to love and survival that we have learned to live without him. In his short life he touched all who knew him and he will live on with us forever. I posted this poem in his memory last year.  THE MAN IN THE MOON Sometimes I see  a youth in the street who reminds me of him, fresh face smiling, base ball capped, arms swinging with spirit, full of life, until I remember our lad is stranded in time, the years have not aged him, worries have not tired him, love and children have not graced him; I might not even recognise the man he would become. He lives forever in my mind, the laughing toddler, the skate boarding teen, the man in the moon, the loving boy  we lost too soon.

Last night's beautiful full moon brought me sweet pangs of sadness as I opened the front door to an empty street and saw the moon, hidden by cloud above the roof tops.  Month after month I have stood at the door with my grandson, pointing up at the full moon or wandered the village streets to catch sight of it around corners. He has always loved the moon, it was one of his first words as I held him him to see an August full moon rising over the hillside. He spent his early years spotting all kind of moon shapes, from crescent to full moons on pictures, packaging and clothes. To see the moon without him was a reminder of our love which only grows with the passing of each month.  © 2020 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

This large lump of stone sitting by the path must have fallen from the dry stone wall or been left in its making. Normally lost in the grass the sun striking it transformed the dull rock into a shining, white orb that looked like it had fallen from the moon.  © 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved.  

The creative process of writing fascinates me. There are times it is down to hard work, opening the page and putting aside distractions. However, I believe a lot of the creative preparation goes on at the back of our brain, where the germ of an idea is planted and the mind ticks away unnoticed. As I have inherited the family trait of insomnia, I often wake in the night and whilst the world sleeps, words make patterns in my mind. If I am lucky, they pour out as a poem in the morning and I can quickly capture them. They will need to be refined and polished but often the poem is there, as if by magic.   WORD WITCH I am a mixer of words. The crock simmers, ladle soothing balm to heal raw wounds of sorrow, fire righteous flames that spit out caustic darts of ire, conjure measured rhetoric, devoir for justice slicing through hypocrisy. I am a word witch. The day’s words done  await the moon muse  when owls g...