Everyday Poetry

Sometimes a diversion can lead you to experience an alternative route in a new way.  This morning I drove along a route I'd driven before, but perhaps because I wasn't expecting to go that way today,  I saw it in a different way.   Diverted from my usual route to the road through Woodmancote - where once we thought to buy  the last house before the hill - I wind my way steeply through woods bright-lit with copper beech,  each dressed in burnt orange skirts, popping against trees now filigree-bare. Drawn by the beauty of novelty the Old London Road calls me down its narrow burnished path, to emerge from the glowing road away from Wotton's busy heart. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

We got up at 4am this morning to see the sun rise over Lake Phewa, and light up the Anapurna range of mountains.  I treated myself to 3 very quiet Oms to celebrate! one deep lungful of air creates enough resonance  to vibrate my body in time with the sunrise. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

Horrendous day today - set off from Kathmandu at 7.45am, got to Pokhara 6.30pm. The road was being upgraded along its entire length all at once,  meaning there was virtually no tarmac for 220km. The road from Kathmandu to Pokhara will be spectacular when finished; winding its way through screenprinted landscapes, successive steep-sided valleys tree-coated, river-lined, mountain-shaded.  As it is, we are shaken, rattled and rolled along its 11-hour long, baked earth track, each rut, pockmark, missing piece of road  bouncing us in our seats, each jolt straining our bladders. By hour eight we care little for distant white-capped mountains; we pray for a smooth patch of road, the next toilet break. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

In the markets sweets are jewelled mounds piled high, this last day of Diwali: brother-and-sister day when families visit, bringing honeyed gifts along with a promise  of protection. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

White on white - magnificent marble mausoleum  iconic symbol of undying love - sits silently shrouded  as ethereal as if it were mist rather than smog. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

I wrote this after a toilet stop in the way from Jaipur to Varaneeshya.  Don't go to India  not if you worry about squatting over a hole in the ground, with no running water. not if you worry about hawkers thrusting their wares in your face, "300, 200, 100 only". not if you worry about children caked in street filth, tugging at your sleeve, your heart. not if you worry about rubbish, plastic bottles, bags, packaging, strewn across the streets. But if you can make peace with all that  you will find beauty wherever you look. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

On the flight over to India we witnessed a lightening storm taking place below us. I was fascinated how the clouds lit up in spheres. Each flash of lightning reveals secret gauzy globes, bright Christmas baubles. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

Another impressionistic dash through an Indian city.  I loved Agra,  so full of life.  Early Morning Agra Every street is crammed full of life: carts stand piled high with chillies, bananas,  apples, sweets, cauliflowers,  groups of men squat cooking over open fires, goats strain against their pavement tethers, tuk tuks race through traffic jams, horns blaring, two or three people weave past on each motorbike, women and children balanced behind the men. Everyone on the streets are carrying phones talking, gesticulating, taking photos of us looking at them through the coach window - we're as much a curiosity as they are. Nursery plants are laid out neatly to make carpets of the pavements while tinsel garlands hang strung through trees brightening up a little town of tents  pitched here and there on a corner and homes thrown together on pavements. Monkeys and solitary dogs sit high on walls spying on packs of dogs gathering to roam under trees with stripey pa...

A poem written in a rush of impressions.  Everywhere the red dust  horns blaring cars, bikes, rickshaws, tuk tuks weaving round pedestrians, dogs, cows, rubbish squeezing through impossible spaces  men urinating in the street  families making the pavements home babies resting sleepily, just feet from traffic  Rickshaw drivers in Chandni Chowk push their handlebars in front of each rival touting for custom. The long slow slog uphill shames us for our western bulk, relieved only by the exhilaration of the downhill. A street girl catches hold of a sleeve once, twice, before being shaken, hard, by the driver afraid of losing his tip. He pedals us down narrow streets  past traders hawking vegetables  garlands and dieties for Diwali,  to emerge onto a wide avenue where Hindu temples, mosques,  rub shoulders with banks, shops, hotels,  a distant red fort framed in the mist. Back on the street we're hustled, everything thrust in our faces -...

We had the privilege of getting up close to a tiger this afternoon. Musing on William Blake led to this little poem  tiger tiger fast asleep  slowly down the track we creep annoyed at trucks in front of us we can't move on, we cannot pass. we really want to see the beast  but others want their eyes to feast on their prize a good while longer while we sit and fretfully wonder how many photos will be taken before you from your sleep will waken. at last the trucks begin to leave and into place our driver weaves we see you there, in all your glory this will make a perfect story - how we saw you before you walked away, how this wild encounter made our day. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved