Colouring Sunday

Colouring Sunday.

“I’ll fetch Mac,” she says

“He doesn’t want to join in but he’ll watch.”

I ask if he’s new.

“He’s 99,” she says.

The door swings softly shut

And I’m left to bring colour and activity

into the impersonal institutional room.

We cover the bright splashes of garish

Pretend paint on plastic

with blue paper to protect

Delicate eyes and fragile minds.

She returns without Mac but with Constance

who stares at me with a half smile of recognition,

and sits with practised complicity

on the chair nearest me,

accepting my offer of colouring book and crayons.

Mac arrives.

A tall lath of smiling energy,

he shakes my hand and aims for the

Blue vinyl sofa, a safe distance from where

We work on the small table.

Constance is lost in the concentration

Of colouring petals first red then green.

Unable to resist the empty chair at the table,

Mac joins us. 

“I’m 99” he says in the way that commands

respect for the numeric milestone.

He gets it.

 “I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 4yrs old.

They’re no good for playing rough games.”

It sounds like an apology.

“I was Cumberland and Westmorland Swimming Champion.”

It’s not. It’s an explanation.

“I played tennis” shares Constance without looking up.

This is the first personal thing I know about her.

“It’s how I met my husband. He asked if he could play with me.

I had to laugh but he didn’t mean it in that way!”

She looks up. Her open mischevious grin completes a shared circle.

“We got married in Cannock at the big church.”

“I met my wife when we started cycling club the same night.

We cycled 100 miles on a Sunday.

We got married in 1939 in Kendal. Three days later war broke out.

I was conscripted. I wouldn’t have joined up.”

“As you know, I was a shorthand typist. I was in the WAAFs.

I wasn’t really in the war but I did climb on a tank once.”

I didn’t know. Constance puts down her crayons.

“I started at English Electric then a solicitors then BRC.”

We compliment Constance on her delicately shaded flowers

“I’m not much for flowers or gardening,” says Mac,

but a glimpse of an empty sunflower brightens

a shared memory of French fields.

“Yes, I’ve seen those. I’ve travelled all over.

I was an engineer stationed in Italy. We went to Naples, Rome all over.

Then I fixed anti-aircraft guns along the South Coast from Dover…

To I don’t remember where.”

“I loved being a shorthand typist.

I wrote a play. It didn’t go anywhere.

It was set on the South Coast.

It was a romance.

I like to explore people, you know;

Think about their character.”

Dawn Jutton, Feb 2016

Why do we name a hurricane?

I initially got involved in 'There is No Planet B' , Stafford Green Arts Festival 2016  to help organise the Art competition, believing I could support the hard-working volunteers to achieve their ambition to increase and improve the quality of submissions. As the week long event looms I realise that I have probably gained as much as I have given. I have been welcomed into a new network of people who are passionate about the issues that affect our very existence on the planet, I have been appreciated for my personal efforts and professional expertise, and I have 

ensured that Gainsborough [art]works can be a worthwhile 

partner in events planned and run by others.

If I'm honest however, I have been most excited by the opportunity to immerse a little more of myself into the poetry world. Since my 'Doxey Marshes' poem has been published in 'The Poetry of Staffordshire' by Offa's Press, I have a new-found confidence in putting my random efforts out there. I have attended a few more events recently and remain in admiration of the wit and skill of performance poets. Their ability to not only weave words that make you think, read them out in a rhythm that draws you in, but 

to have enough confidence to share them is also enviable. 

So, back to the Green Arts, and this time the poetry competition. As we have Bert Flitcroft- the current Staffordshire Poet Laureate- hosting our Life of Riley [word] Cafe at Gainsborough [art]works on Thursday 3rd March, I thought it would be appropriate to have written at least one poem myself on the Festival theme. As is often the case, I awoke with a phrase in my head, "why do we name a hurricane?" and an attempt at writing a poem that 

concentrates on internal rhymes and a rhythm that might suit 

performing it has therefore occupied me this morning. 

Off to send it to Carol Kirkwood now at the BBC!

Why do we name a Hurricane?

Why do we name a hurricane?

To comprehend it, befriend it,

and send it calmer on its way

‘cause we listened to its’ moans?

Why does Carol need to warn me

She’s left Henry and Imogen’s

On her way? She won’t stay.

Like all the rest, at best,

She’ll slap your face

Cause floods of tears,

pass through, forget you,

and leave you to pick up her mess,

and deny you should address

your fears for why she visited.

Like Abigail, Barney, Desmond

Frank and Eva before her,

she’ll be the stranger at your door

you try to ignore.

You won’t listen,

or see her eye glisten

when she tells you there’ll be more.

That you called them all

with your wanting to progress,

to fill the plains with concrete plans

instead of wilderness.

Writing Doxey Marshes

And so I finally submitted a poem! After the advice of the ever generous Emma P, I combined my love of prose with an as yet untried Haiku form-known in the poetry world as a Haibun. Her advice was spot on and very astute as usual and although I can't say I found it easy-but what craft is?- I found that the prose sections allowed me to splurge before using the Haiku form to be more succinct. hopefully I will finally be a published poet by the Winter with 'Doxey Marshes'.  It has certainly given me the confidence to keep writing- and brings ever closer a project using my images, sketches and words together! The bare bones progress of this project will be published irregularly in my blog 'Maud 1921'.

Doxey Marshes

Doxey Marshes
by Dawn Jutton

I
Breath mingling with morning mist we drift through weather pitted and unknown memorials, outlived by their faded plastic tributes. Unconcerned with decoding Stafford’s past, the dog drives us on through silver guiding gates, his excitement tapped out in a random rhythm on the thin ice. White stalks of spent rushes pierce the skyline and point to a trail of labouring wings and frantic calls slicing the frozen air. The black geese, gathered on green-grassed mounds, survey potential bankside building sites and warily track our progress through their solitude.

Skeletal silence

Under exposed thin white skin -

In memoriam

II

The sun rises above the muted distant tower of St. Mary’s, persistent in its effort to bring pink life to the grey sky. An icy breeze mocks still water into movement towards the oblivious River Sow that’s rushing to an unknown rendevous. The riverbank is punctuated by pairs of geese and ducks, trading safety in numbers for precarious parenting amongst the protective green swords: hidden new life marked only by lone sorties for fresh supplies. We leave the disappearing and unpredictable depths of the watery path to tip toe across tufts of resilient grasses avoiding ankle deep pockets of mud, a much easier feat for the dog than us.

Watery red carpet

Stillness threaded through soft noise-

In memoriam.

III

From where we stand the tonal stripes of the grasses appear to form a natural flag flying in the light breeze, tentatively signaling Summer.  Encouraging ripples of sunlight dance joyfully on the water’s surface whilst thin long reeds tirelessly sway below to the unheard tune of the flow. White swans drift upstream, their sun-lined wings spread in confident celebration of their beauty and a warning to keep our distance.  Ahead of us soporific cattle swish flies from their grass filled bellies and form a guard across the path, the leader fixing her dark brown gaze on my attempt to communicate my lack of fear and danger.  The engagement ends when I feel the pull of a lead at full stretch as the dog fearfully attempts to make himself invisible and skulk past.

Lily leaf red scales  

Fingers sift burnt dry petals-

In memoriam.

IV

We follow the egret on its’ stalk in protest of change. Unaware of their undecided future the grasses contentedly rustle alongside us, and the river races itself to the other side of the bridge.  Across the pond, a shy heron sits motionless on an anglers’ platform before launching its prehistoric form in awkward flight away from us as we approach.  From the pillar box hide that is not hidden, but sits like an uncomfortable hard grey lump on soft skin, we watch the thin silver ribbon on the blue haze of the horizon carry unconcerned travellers past this place of precarious peace and watery graves that we are desperate to protect.

Worn sandstone sentries

Guardians of marsh and life-

In memoriam