Tags
1935, 1970, 2007, 2009, 2012, afterlife, armchair, being, black, brown, carpet, chair, cigar, doing, doors, evening, fire, floorboards, garden, green, horizon, life, living, living room, night, piano, plants, plastic, Ramsden Heath, realisation, sitting, sitting room, smell, sound, table, talking, trees, uncle, windows, wine, wood
Michael Redford
1935-2007
later on
he strolled in the garden
breathing the night and the plants
smoking a fine cigar
then he paused
and looked back at the armchair
where he had been sitting –
Pphffffff
—~~M~~—
sitting room
plastic-marbled
chest-height handle
smell of sofa-linen
and wood-fire evenings
with company
and dark green wines
cool black boards and
the white patterned carpet
with almost-meeting
crenellated walls
brow-height mantelpiece
on jungle green
and the piano in the
corner with duff bass keys –
plant-shaking
—~~M~~—
1970
to my uncle
shifting on
hardplastic
seat of dining
chair – crack –
elbow uncomfortable
on table-edge
carving – creak –
to execute a
perfect tree
on the horizon
with just two strokes
one brown
one green
I knew then
to put down
my compass plans
for every detail
but only just now
doing it
looking for what to publish today, I found my uncle unassumingly proffering the lesson in life that he always gave, even nine years after he died: that you don’t look for life, you notice it; some teachers teach by being rather than saying, so that you don’t realise you are being taught until you know; wherever he is now, I hope he knows what he gave me/us … in fact I dedicate the clean-ity of all I notice to return the gift to my uncle wherever his lives have led him now
————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–
being & doing wormhole: need
black wormhole: the start of adolescence
brown wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4
carpet wormhole: ‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6
doors & garden wormhole: impressionism
evening wormhole: well,
green & talking wormhole: bavardage
horizon & life wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
living & night & smell & sound & table & windows & wood wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
living room wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
piano wormhole: tabla
Ramsden Heath & uncle wormhole: … still waving!
realisation wormhole: dream career // groggy
sitting wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
sitting room wormhole: purple and mauve
trees wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
mlewisredford 
“Notice life” … yes, that is a very true concept. I think you learned the lesson well … it comes through loud and clear in your poems.
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ah, yes; some teachers teach by being rather than saying, so that you don’t realise you are being taught until you know; wherever he is now, I hope he knows what he gave me/us … in fact I dedicate the clean-ity of all I notice to return the gift to my uncle wherever his lives have led him now;
in fact, I think I’ll add this to the post itself
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Not just to notice, but WHAT to notice. WHAT to put on the page. How to distill the essence and allow the rest to fall away.
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… and, I suppose, WHY; what made one notice WHAT was noticed amid the thousand other things that COULD have been noticed: the journey made … WITHIN oneself to the outside …?
thank you
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