tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8319797996494487653.post8275231938069290286..comments2023-12-30T17:31:11.883+00:00Comments on The Solitary Walker: With The Dawn Comes Fresh HopeThe Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8319797996494487653.post-35233711209714948522010-10-16T13:34:27.436+01:002010-10-16T13:34:27.436+01:00Thanks, Caroline. I already knew your website a li...Thanks, Caroline. I already knew your website a little (congratulations on winning that poetry competition, btw!) I think a pared-down Blogger URL will do me fine, though - I won't really need lots of buttons and links and fancy stuff.The Solitary Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8319797996494487653.post-62090759810161873092010-10-15T21:29:41.619+01:002010-10-15T21:29:41.619+01:00Thank you, Robert, for posting these poems. Do let...Thank you, Robert, for posting these poems. Do let us know when your website is up and running. <br /><br />Loved those animal thoughts, too! <br /><br />Blogs are so much easier, but (if it will link in) here's my <a href="http://www.davidgill.co.uk/cg/" rel="nofollow">website</a>, in need of a little updating ...Caroline Gillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05203454486693014969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8319797996494487653.post-35619361270817833552010-10-15T13:12:05.118+01:002010-10-15T13:12:05.118+01:00Thanks Ruth, George, Friko and Andy for your comme...Thanks Ruth, George, Friko and Andy for your comments.<br /><br />I wrote the poem while camping in the Lake District after just such a squally night (during which I'd kept waking up) and tranquil dawn. It's meant to have an ambiguity to it, which Ruth has so nicely picked up on. Why does my heat beat so fast? Night terrors? Joy? Isn't it better to be still, the word to which both symmetrical halves of the poem point? Yet the word 'still' can also be taken two ways here.<br /><br />If I'm deep in the heart of nature - so close that I can recognise individual bird songs and attempt to descibe them onomatopoeically, and am moved by the calling (not the silence!) of the lambs - then why do I feel at the same time divorced from nature, in the sense that I can't understand what's it's saying? The last line is hardly confident, too, with its qualifying 'as if'.<br /><br />Thanks for picking up on the leitmotif and the 'insistent' repetitions, George.<br /><br />In fact, as human beings, we always stand both within and outside of nature simultaneously. Don't we?The Solitary Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8319797996494487653.post-12570341540768525742010-10-15T11:27:11.214+01:002010-10-15T11:27:11.214+01:00Robert,
thanks for sharing this. Just back from ...Robert,<br /><br />thanks for sharing this. Just back from four days walking in Shropshire and it is so good to read this. I hope the poetry site comes off,<br /><br />AndyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8319797996494487653.post-66599937703009577532010-10-14T23:26:07.638+01:002010-10-14T23:26:07.638+01:00My heartfelt appreciation to you for writing and p...My heartfelt appreciation to you for writing and publishing this poem.<br />There speaks a man who is in tune with nature, who listens and feels, and whose body, mind and soul feel nature's heartbeat as if it were his own. <br />I expect it is, at that.Frikohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04277167831642088694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8319797996494487653.post-50656132492175027992010-10-14T21:49:47.386+01:002010-10-14T21:49:47.386+01:00This is a terrific poem, Robert. Loved every word...This is a terrific poem, Robert. Loved every word of it, as well as the silences in between. Loved the rhythm and the leitmotiv — heart-heart-heart, beating-beating-beating, ground-ground-ground. Maybe the heart only beats — and maybe we are only alive — when we are grounded in the natural world and our own authenticity.<br /><br />I'm looking forward to the poetry site. Sound exciting!Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03959953035812596907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8319797996494487653.post-45525297639942549652010-10-14T20:26:57.022+01:002010-10-14T20:26:57.022+01:00My heart is beating fast. Or did it stop? I'm ...My heart is beating fast. Or did it stop? I'm not sure. I can't tell what it's saying. But it's OK in the silence at the end of this poem, which was heartmelting, like the lambs.<br /><br />I felt just like that, like I'm living at last, when I got to the end.<br /><br />I don't know what I'm saying. (And frankly I don't care.)<br /><br />And well, of course the word verification is: guessest<br /><br />So I guess your guess, or my guess, at what is being said, is the guessest.<br /><br />I think my comment is longer than your poem, and I'm only feeling slightly ridiculous in the wake of it. <br /><br />:)Ruthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com