awake (living planet)

This afternoon’s wild walk by my gale-swept Nordic shores prompted a blog post in my mind.

However, as wild waves – rollers, breakers – crashed at my feet, my heart reeled back to last weekend, as disaster struck over an antipodean archipelago.

Wild waves by my shoormal.

News of the cataclysm in the Pacific prompted a piece in response, written in the wake of it last Monday.

Living Planet


400,000 lightning bolts.


That sonic boom heard in Fiji, New Zealand, even
Alaska.
Hunga-Tonga-Hunga Ha’pai blown into
sky;
billowing cloud,
giant mushroom on satellite,
it has been felt around
the globe.

Little Earth shook -
ocean rippled so far away,
Peru, Japan…
It has been felt around
us all.

So much unknown under water or
where folk live like
castaways;
potential hell, dust,
acid rain over
              it all.


NH, 17 Jan 2022.

fatalité

ablaze

Victor Hugo had cried for her in his foreword… And it took a book (“Notre Dame de Paris“) to trigger major restoration works, as the elderly lady was notably suffering from severe erosion to time, history and the elements.

What happened last night felt totally surreal. Notre-Dame has survived so many ordeals – human assaults, the hands from time – and during those 850 years (or so), she saw a city grow and thrive.

Inside her so many memories. Her world famous bell – le bourdon – became associated with so many events (including the liberation of Paris in 1944) happy or sad… And against all odds, she has been standing in this Parisian sky.

Last night, my heart bled at the news, and this orange-grey cloud – flames from her heart, as the 19th century spire yielded to a raging fire that engulfed the forest – this nickname given to those 1300 oak trees that served as timber frame to support that huge slate roof.

Like millions of people around the world, I watched powerless, in disbelief, and heaved the following poem, as a tribute or way to cope with shock.

La forêt

Ô Notre Dame,
    ta forêt brûle, ton coeur en flammes!

Une forêt de chênes
         de cent mètres de long,
une forêt de chênes 
         charpentée par des anges,
une forêt de chênes  
         anoblie par les âges;
 
 toute une nuit orangée a dévoré ta flèche, ton coeur et
ta charpente -

une forêt de chênes,
         maison pour un bossu et son Esméralda...

toute une nuit d'horreur, pluie battante d'ardoises
retrouvées en poussière à l'issue 
                           d'un déluge -

une forêt de chênes au XXIe siècle toute 
                                      réduite en cendres,

ton coeur, ce cher poumon,
                     au plus proche des âmes.


©Nat Hall 2019

The Forest

 
Ô Notre Dame, 
    your forest burns - your heart in flames!

A forest of oak trees 
                long of a hundred yards,
a forest of oak trees 
              carpented by angels,
a forest of oak trees 
              enobled through ages;

it took one orange night to 
devour your heart, spire and timber frame -

a forest of oak trees 
once homed Esmeralda and her loving hunchback,

one single night of hell in 
a deluge of slate as tiles turned into dust -

a forest of oak trees that neared 
               a millenium now reduced in ashes.

Your heart, this dearest lung, 
                     so close to all our souls.

© Nat Hall 2019

Photo credit to Le Monde for both images. Merci.

2018

Yule and now Hogmanay behind us.

The tidal loch remains frozen at Wadbister on New Year’s Day, and it may well stay in this state for a while…

Wadbister is the place where I buried 2017 with good friends & two of their neighbours. I woke up this late morning and breakfasted with my hosts, Sharon and Andy, looking at a brand new sky. Blue, serene, by a garden and bay that homes a wonderful wildlife. If I missed the otter, I was blessed with my first avian visitors – starling, blackbird, sparrow and robin – when an unusual visitor (to our latitude here anyway!) graced the garden, a great tit. What a grand start to the primal day of the year! 

By the time I left my friends’ home, a West wind was recolouring the heavens, as light rain showers began to christen the land… 

2017

A year of contrasts – a tale of two halves, with its kaleidoscope of emotions – that took my heart across headlands, bays, the English Channel and the North Sea. 

A creative year, as it has anchored my pen into this second collection of poetry in the making… Writing on both sides of the North Sea, with a fabulous return to West Norwegian shores last September.  

And our descent to Yule marked by the shifting of our AHS to its new 21st building at Lochside, which proved an extraordinary exercise. 

Yet October was graced by extraordinary moments, reunions and meetings that began to pave my way into 2018. For this, I feel humble, blessed and grateful to 2017. 

Christie Williamson and Hazel Frew, see you both in your great Celtic town in April! 

November also graced by new humane and creative connections thanks to friend and poetess Choman Hardi, who made me discover Barbara Cumbers, a kindred spirit based in London, and regular visitor to Shetland. Magic slices of life shared since, including two readings at the Book Fest and in Scalloway. 

December crowned by many smiles

The joy of reaching Yule marked with many delights – a poet’s working blurb published in Shetland Life, a poem inside the Yule Issue of the New Shetlander. 

The island clad by sun and snow on the eve of a well deserved break. 

A peaceful end to a year that felt a real roller coaster, and as the twelfth month was about to draw to an end, a brand new project now at my writer’s table in the translation of a manuscript. Wonderful challenge and task that began on the Eve of Hogmanay.

So,

Thank you, 2017, for your joys and tears, harvest of adventures, new friends across headlands and seas.

Today, on the primal day of the year, there burns a fire in my heart, like a beacon for the twelve months ahead.

Hello, 2018. Let me welcome you with fresh eyes, a shameless smile, heart filled with hopes.

The road ahead feels both very exciting and promising.

A very happy new year to you all, wherever you walk on this amazing planet. May 2018 grant you good health and happiness.

Feathered

Feathered for a day,

Feathered and proud, on the final Tuesday of January, as eyes of the world turn to a group of young Vikings about to perpetuate a tradition fit for our Nordic latitude.

It is a time when our Junior Jarl Squad shines inside our hall before they stampede through the school and then the town with their elders for a marathon of merriment.

Every year, the island’s sole urban centre sets itself for such day.

As night settles, their replica viking long ships will be torched like a winter bonfire. You can watch live via 60N TV online.

May this summons the return of the sun 🙂

Happy Lerwick Up-Helly-Aa!

à cœur ouvert

Haunting moment,
tonight’s gale contained inside my chimney’s conduit. I hate this type of exercise – this woman trapped deep inside me can sometimes shine and find her words.

March

March is
my galley on fire,
final voyage,
my hellery –
March is a nightmare with
rainbows,
hell, tears & bliss,
a long
promise;
March is a month
I learnt to
loathe,
tarnished with blood,
loss of my future,
life loved
genes.
March is
a monster in
motion,
mechanism turned into
dread –
as I
dream of
cherry blossoms,
poet’s torn
eyes,
Sakura’s
world whirled in
a wind they
call
“Mistral”.

© Nat Hall 2015

alight

Up-Helly-Aa 2015
Lerwick, Shetland – 1 Jarl, 47 squads, 969 torches through the streets of the Islands’ capital…
Les moments forts, highlights in a string of images fresh from my iPod 🙂

hurt

Sur la terre des droits de l’homme

Fanaticism, brain washing, indoctrination and ignorance should have no place. And yet… A trio attempted to silence freedom of expression.
It’s like walking backwards… They think they can stop a concept with bullets. Correction: they created a movement of solidarity by spilling blood.
I can’t believe Cabu – who cartooned my every Wednesday afternoon as a teenager – fell among eleven other souls… I can’t come to terms with such act of barbarity in the first place.
Politics can backfire in so many different ways. Terrorism has so many faces.

Yet as one cannot stop terrorism, one cannot equally silence freedom of expression (unless dictatorship overrides democracy).

May the many pencils rise against tyranny – may the world unite

Monsieur Voltaire would embrace it.

All images courtesy of Charlie Hebdo Support Community

My sympathy goes to all the victims’ families, as well as to all those victim of intolerance, terrorism, fanaticism & oppression of any kind.

My greatest fear resides in the fact some people may be misled by some politicians and vote for even more dangerous political etiquettes… A few 20th century leaders who led their countries to annihilation were elected this way. They (such politicians) feed on this.
Furthermore,
common people are not responsible for their government’s foreign & economic policies, as governments are governed in strange ways & obey rules of unreachable mercantile nature (the masses cannot reach) once politicians are elected… (When nations are granted such right to vote).

Democracy has long lost its primeval meaning. And it hurts.

Samhain

1.

First snow –
bird inside cage, inside darkest of corridor,
winter of all requirements,
on final day of October,
spirits wander
through
cabinets,
to sing at night
among snowflakes that
come invited on your hair, as we
carve faces from darkness, pale blue lightness of icicles.

2.

We just opened
doors to Samhain, where
elders’ souls
wander
thru’ darkest of
our lands.
With them, winter –
where November seeks through
weak light our long shadows,
tears & final, blood
harvest;
such a thin veil
between
two
worlds,
as the living
blends with the dead to
feast in peace below first snow.

3.

Hallow,
Samhain,
feast of the dead –
time to reconcile with
Nocturne,
demons disguised
around old
cairns,
ready to dance
with northern lights.
From primal
frost,
tell me the runes will never lie.

© Nat Hall 2013

—————- 31 Oct 2013, Samhain

dragons & I…

 I have a thing about dragons.

They make me dream.

Let them fly to you. Amazing creatures with glowing eyes and power to elevate your spirit. They are fire. Fully clad with claws (sometimes hidden in velvet gloves) that resemble a fully extended Swiss army knife, the most charming of smiles… Would you believe they can be truly elusive, so shy they are? I once met one, who answered by the name of Feenix. We lived on neighbouring islands – we spent our time wrapped up inside our poetry… Feenix then flew south of my headland. She came back once inside my den, though I have not heard from her since then.

Now, there is another, a he-youngling, who is growing north of my den. He will be eight weeks on Tuesday. His mum’s a poet too 🙂

On the twelfth night, fire rekindles my spirit!

some gods must be crazy…

from this to that

Our homeworld’s amazing – unpredictable, skyshifting like a celestial chameleon – from ash plumes to ash-tainted mini-blizzards and back into blue before sliding down to the monotony od speckled white. Wow! This morning was so promising in spite of melting snowflake during overnight showers… And then, our nordic sky blackened again and snow flew towards us at great speed. Big, gluey, fluffy, fat snowflakes falling on and off all day and still at the time of typing this entry…


Both amazing and mental… Not uncommon on this latitude.  That cold airflow from more nordic latitudes (Arctic circle, Iceland…. Oh, poor Iceland. I do not mean to stigmatise you – you’ve got enough on your plate at the minute) can bring such mini-blizzards as late as… June! Our British Met Office has been very accurate recently. Snow was just the last thing many of us wish to see right now. Our garden here, so promising with buds and flowers everywhere. Argh well, I trust nature has ways to deal with the elements. 

 

Lost

Wish for pebbles.

 I’m losing sight of horizon, that blue barrier in heavens,

where all my dreams in single file

gather and dance;

 Now I walk through mirrors in ice,

icicles betray more than eyes –

out there,

somewhere,

here comes a monster in disguise; ego shadow,

blown by west wind invincible,

that doesn’t breathe,

direct or talk.

Sandwick, May 2007