For years I thought how good it would be to belong to, or at least to be close to, a coterie. This morning it occurred to me that in a way there is one all around us. If you are a blogger and people visit your site and you visit other sites regularly, a group begins to build, as comments are exchanged, common lines of thought and interests developed. It may not be Bloomsbury or the Algonquin Hotel, Montmartre, or Chelsea in the time of the Pre-Raphaelites. But in the age of the global village, it is almost something better, more open, freer. So Clare, Lucy, Tristan, Tall Girl, Marja Leena, Dave, Lucas, Rashmi and many others ( and all the links stretching out from your blogs), think: the world is weaving round those observations and photographs, something is taking shape, to which one day a name may be given.
The plane leaves on the pavement of Mount Pleasant are enormous. They lie separately on the pavement like green and gold stars. Today, I see a child in a push chair holding one by its long stem as though it were a toy. But it is something better.
As I walk in Calverley Park, I hear from a neighbouring church, this bright and crisp afternoon, the just discernable words of John Bunyan's hymn:
He who would valiant be,
'Gainst all disaster...
...We know we at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies flee away!
I'll fear not what men say
I'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.
7 comments:
"Coterie" is a good word I rarely remember to use - thanks for reminding me of it. One of the blogging coteries I belong to has just had a book published - Brilliant Coroners.
I love the idea of being part of a 'coterie' , and that we are part of one together, thank you! I was going to mention Brilliant Coroners too, though I only contributed part of an image for it, not being a poet.
maybe it's a kind of pilgrimage too
I like the observation that the child has found something better than a toy in the giant sycamore leaf.
The word coterie is very apt for our blogging - Marshall McCluhan's concept of the global village come to life! Particularly as coterie derives - according to my dictionary - from the old French, meaning "an association of cottagers."
My heart is warmed by these words, I'm very happy to be in this loose association of cottagers!(Much better I'm sure than I would have liked Bloomsbury or the Pre-Raphaelites, my hair is all wrong for the latter!), and it is a wonderful thing the way the lines flow out and then sometimes join up again.
Does seem like a family... one I'm happy and honoured to be part of. I turned one on Life Ain't That Bad..! That makes me so proud, because this has to be the longest I've stuck to any 'activity'... the secret, of course, lies in the fact, that it isn't an activity, much the same as smiling isn't! May the Tribe increase!
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