Here we are again, happy as can be...

Having just spent six hours(!!!!) clearing out a twelve year old's bedroom, I can certainly say I achieved something with my day.... whether it was worthwhile is another thing.... I'm pretty sure that in two days' time the place will be just as bad as before... but there we are... which brings us to painting the Forth Bridge, or rolling that stone up the hill... some jobs are neverending... others just seem so.... but as usual, I digress.... I'm writing poetry again, which puts me some of the way towards the ambition I mentioned the other day... not far along the road, but getting there.... when it comes to poetry I often feel like Taran, the Assistant Pig Keeper inLloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles....(and NOT, I hasten to add, in the dire Disney film "the Black Cauldron...") .... if any of you out there have ever read the books, you may remember that in the fourth, "Taran Wanderer" our young hero sets out to find out who he is.... during that time, he learns easily how to plant a field, weave a cloak, and forge a sword.... but the one skill he comes to desire most, the shaping of clay, seems to escape him, until finally, after much hard work, he throws a wine bowl that the master potter declares to be passable.... and he realises that to become as good as he wishes, he would need to spend his whole life at the potters wheel.... but due to his commitments to others, and his duty, he cannot.... he cannot be selfish, and let his friends suffer for his desire.... so in the end he leaves.... sadder, but wiser..... and happy for the memories.... well, as I say, that's how poetry feels to me.... like Taran, I occasionally, after a lot of hard work, turn out something I feel is passable... not great literature naybe, but fit for its purpose according to the "sale of poetry act 1964"..... I think all of us, if we know ourselves well enough, have something the same inside us.... as Ricky Pym said, "Dreams... dreams are like the Stars.... we may never reach them... but, OH! how we profit from their presence!"... so to all you dreamers and poets, and would-be clay-shapers, Wisebeard salutes you!!