Hortense and Bridget

Initially it was the names
They aroused my interest
Names have always fascinated
Emily Pankhurst, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso
Leonora Carrington, Samuel Pepys, Eleanor Roosevelt,
Benjamin Disraeli, Horatio Nelson, Rudolf Nureyev,
Elizabeth Fry.
_______

Margaret Thatcher, Gordon Brown
Sorry, they just don't cut it for me.
_______

But back to my point
Hortense and Bridget
Two good names to conjure.
Some names make their demands;
One needs to live up to them;
Reach their potential, prove oneself.
_______

And so it was through a love of poetry
Hortense and I met.
Not in person; not even speaking on the 'phone
Online; emails.
_______

I've always like women;
Women's company; their easy humour;
Their ability to 'discover' one another, dig deep
in the shortest time.
H and I did this.
Hortense, I learned, was many things but
writing was our link.
Bridget, her partner, a painter.
See, there you go.
_______

One day we - Stephen and I
had the invite.
Ceret, a small arty, cobbly town
South of France, where they lived.
I knew the trip would not disappoint.
Hortense and Bridget/Bridget and Hortense
An instant, easy connection
Kisses on both cheeks, bisous, laughter
Talk, talk, talk, food and wine and chocolate.
_______

They lived up to their names, they are living up to their names
And I'm pretty sure they will continue doing so.
Sometimes, not always of course,
it just works
It's all in a name.
_______

September 2015/MM

Anglesey

Ballad of Anglesey

This is an island written in stone

Of hunters, warriors, poets and song

They came through the forests of northern Wales

Thousands of years way before Christ

Following deer by day and by night;

 

Across the tracks and across the trails

Here come the hunters to Anglesey

Gathering roots, gathering berries

Collecting mussels from the Swellies

Making weapons of wood, flint and bone

Settlements form – it’s the Age of Stone.

 

They cleared the woods and planted crops

Wool, skins and meat came from livestock

Burial chambers they built from that stone

They started to worship the sun as it shone.

They made their tools from iron, copper and bronze

And built their forts on headlands and hills.

 

The culture of Celts swept in on the tide

Warriors fierce tribe by tribe;

There were priests, lawmakers, druids in robes

Worshipping figures and hero-gods

Battling against the English invaders

Battling against those from Rome

Wars were won and some were lost

Fighting to make this island their home.

 

The Vikings came, then Edward the First

But Owain Glyndwr felt the land to be cursed

Then a man from Penmynydd took the English throne

An uneasy settling was felt in Welsh bones;

 

They were farming, smuggling, mining the earth

When action came with a Civil War

And the year was now 1644.

But no backwater here as poetry thrives

Men of letters, Welsh scholars are a sign of the times.

 

The Industrial Revolution transformed the isle

With new roads, railways and mines

Now this beautiful island with two bridges,

Beaches, hills, sand dunes and farms

Castles, rocks, gorse and heather

A sky so big you can touch the stars

Venus, Jupiter and Mars. 

 

Yes, this is a place written in stone

And here I am but a grain of dust

But love this land, love this island

I do, I will, I must.

 

Meg Marsden copyright/August 2015