Lurching yet graceful ,the old black cat sets off.
Slowly he circles the edges of the garden in joy.
In the car ,though still in a shut basket,
He always knew when we came to the turning of the road.
Was it the cherry trees in blossom,a scent
Or something we could never be aware of?
I would open his basket in the car.
He comes out and descends so carefully
Onto the pavement,then tries to bound up the path,
The long wooded back garden is his total joy.
He would sit watching tiny frogs in a deep pond in the sun.
No doubt he longed to catch one.
He once brought a robin indoors,
The bird was completely unharmed.
Must have been his gift to me
We released it later after its shock had worn off.
Now he can only hobble,
And soon, his thinness warns me, he'll be gone.
No cat has ever loved or will love like this cat,
A rescued, terrified animal.
His eyes say everything to me.
I look into their clear-jewelled greenness
I look into a deep,still glowing sea of light.
The last day,finally, all day,he's on my knee.
I say"goodbye,goodbye,Pussy".
And he's gone,just before tea.
Now the garden seems empty.
Love leaves a gap.
Love leaves us bare
Love leaves us stripped.
Yet Love is eternal grace.
A mystery of faith.
I believe.
Believe.
Be.

Albino starlings by Mike Flemming

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33731981

• • [Dvorak is pronounced Vohjack]

    A brilliant composer named Dvorak
    Decided to fold his front door back.
    But then Dvorak tripped,
    And so he was flipped
    Onto a carriage on an ill routed rail track

    By God, he wrote a new work
    As in that  big steam train he sat.
    A symphony unique
    With a diabolical streak…
    All in the key of C flat.

    C flat is more usually named B
    As B is much shorter, you see.
    But the key’s no concern
    For those who discern
    Dvorak scored best when at sea.

    Dvorak like horses and girls
    As they all wore a ribbon and curls.
    He wrote music which dances
    The way a horse prances…
    The girls felt real gay as they whirled

Though it is true  that readers can deduce quite alot about any writer from their style and their substance,there is not a directly autobiographical element in most poetry.It is from the emotions that images often come and the  context of emotions may not be directly expressed or even mentioned.Sylvia Plath wrote a poem”Parliament Hill Fields” which might be interpreted as a mourning for a child miscarried.However it has a much wider possible interpretation and indeed one way of coping with loss and tragedy is by looking at it from a wider perspective,seeing one’s self as part of a large group of women who have lost infants before birth and then part of all of humanity who have suffered grief and loss.Very view if any one can grow to middle age without losing a beloved friend or relative perhaps a parent or sibling.Some people have been driven near to madness by it.

Sylvia Plath seemed able to cope with what was a tough life.She was constantly studying and writing,gave birth to Frieda and lived happily with Ted Hughes who helped her enormously [ and vice versa]

To have done all she had done  including miscarriage and then birth of a second child without any family near her would have been tough for anyone.But she seemed to cope better than most.

How far her life,her depression and so on should be  always discussed in relation to her poems and their interpretation it is hard to know.Naturally her own life was the starting point for poems like “Daddy” but they have a much wider significance in the age of Fascism she grew up in.

If I write from the point of view of a man,it does not signify I’d like t o be a man although on the Internet it might help to fend of pursuers who lurk looking for women [ and no doubt the other way round]

But if we read poetry or prose let’s judge it on its merits and not tear it apart for clues about the identity  and being of the writer

How vividly the memory remains;

Of love and learning,life and all its days.

We must not treat our own lives with disdain

Nor think we’re special in our unique ways.

All humans are distinct and special beings

Our wisdom teaches and our life long view.

Sometimes we’re unsure of  what we’re seeing

It hurts to  put our minds up for review.

We hold assumptions we are ignorant of

And carelessly treat others as our toys.

But when God looked down upon us from above

At least He  what were our games and ploys.

But now alone ,absent his Holy Name

Souls limp and stagger as   with centre maimed

Some websites about the death of God

http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/deathgod.html

http://richarddawkins.net/2015/01/atheist-or-agnostic-and-does-it-matter/

http://brianleiternietzsche.blogspot.co.uk/

Signs and symbols guide the route.
Love gives the soul her appetite.
Though the night is black and starless,
The inner guide is never careless.
The notes are struck,the tune is played,
Plain melodies are overlaid.

In this chant and benediction,
Healing comes for desolation.
Though the passage way is narrow,
This road is the   one to follow.

Struggling through the mud and mire,
We see,in darkness, tongues of fire.