My wife has been commenting more and more lately on what she claims is my incredible shrinking self. She is not talking about some dramatic shift in weight, rather, the loss of muscle in my upper and lower body. It is not hard, as I point out to her, to find the culprit. Gammy shoulders prevent me from any kind of serious swimming, and tendinosis has sabotaged my regime of walking. Both are stubborn and are likely to be around for a while, perhaps forever.

Meanwhile I gaze with some envy at folks ploughing through laps, while others jog and stride past me. When I say stride, I mean moving at a normal walking pace, for the short ambles I am permitted are at a glacial speed. I may be the slowest man in the world at present. Such is the price of a life of sportiness.

Today is the last official day of summer, which I realise if quite arbitrary, but already two are my backyard trees are on the turn. I love the fall of leaves, for though they may clog the gutters and presage the arrival of noisy leaf-blowers, it is a season of gentleness,

"Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,"

as Keats noted.

Yes, I look forward to its 'mellow fruitfulness.' and much else besides.

Where do we separate the artist and their work? Moreover, can we still enjoy creative works when the creator has been disgraced by engaging in heinous activities in their personal life?

It is a discussion that is much had lately, for we live in times when a specific lens is being applied to anyone whose head comes above a particular parapet. It even applies to people from the past, for whom crimes of the present can be retroactively fitted. Indeed, they are being 'fitted up' in every way possible.

I recently watched a few seasons of the remake of "House Of Cards" and was made to feel, in some circles, that I should not be watching Kevin Spacey under any circumstances. I love Woody Allen movies but you can imagine how this goes down with a certain fraternity. Still, I laboured through, the willing suspension of disbelief carrying the day.

Recently I chanced upon the old Glitter rocker, "Hello, Hello, It's Good To Be Back", one of the best glam rock songs of the 1970's. Glitter never appealed to me much as a teenager but I'm happy to give credit where it's due. Naturally, I feel conflicted by listening to a song by a man who abused children over two continents and is still serving a prison sentence. Yet still I enjoyed it. Somehow I could separate the man from his work. To be honest, it wasn't that difficult.

The cleansing of anything that does not come up to some arbitrary standard - and this is sadly yet another utopian project of the left - will always fall upon the incoherence of its logic. People are flawed in all sorts of ways. Artists, political and religious leaders, ordinary folks too, all fall short of the high bar that has been set, the bar which moves with the times. Many too are disturbed by the peremptory responses demanded. 

I hope we can step back from the wilful craziness that will ensue if matters are taken to a logical conclusion.

 Some Lines Composed Too Late For St. Valentines Day.

Almost missing you,

Your photo popped up,

Footnote to the day,

Imagination drew 

Lines and leanings

That would overlay

A seaside snap -

Oversized specs,

A smile rendered

Like a mirrored crack.

So, meeting at last -

Your gentle meander,

The cool botanicals,

A slow walk past

Lovers like tangled sheets

On the grass,

And all that bright water,

Shifting in the light,

Was a shot at something 

Unimagined, slight.

So too this first glimpse

Of unwoken love,

Faintly uncurling,

But hovering somewhere

Above.

Today being St Valentines Day, I suppose I might be expected to churn out at least one love poem. I used to write some of those, though not any more. It is not through any disillusion with love per se, but rather the impetus to write about other things, which is stronger. Critics might argue that a portion of my verse shows an inclination to be 'half in love with easeful death', though as for that, Keats had better cause to write about it than me.

When I was a high school teacher, Valentines Day became a fund raising event for the the school's SRC. Plastic roses, cards and the like would be variously bought and delivered to classrooms, eliciting gasps of envy or embarrassment. I received my fair share of these though there was one occasion in particular that leapt to mind this morning. 

I had returned to the staff room after a class only to find my desk groaning with floral tributes, some of which were actual roses. The principal happened to be present and, alluding to the pile, asked what I was doing at school to generate such a response. Of course they were all anonymously given so I had no idea whether they came from staff or students or even outside the school.

My Head Teacher piped in to say that I had designed a unit on love poetry and had taught it to my Year 11. It was true that I had put together a short course to introduce students to poetry analysis. Love seemed like as good a theme as any, so I rounded up a few of the usual suspects (Marvell, Donne, Shakespeare, Jonson) and added (as I recall) a number of more recent examples (Browning, Rosetti, Hardy). I don't think it went down too badly at all.

But I doubt that it caused the tsunami of roses that landed on my desk that day.

Random Thoughts at Kickboard

At the level of the sea,

The sky's a filmy sheet of foam

That drapes into a treed horizon.

A disquieting kind of harmony.

To ply the lane with board alone,

And cut the plain like a machete,

Is a metaphysics to atone

For one bled into the other.

Violent splash and flipper-purl,

Vast unfogging of the mind,

Readings of a deeper kind,

Emerge unbidden from the whorl.

It is sad when people die, especially those that you know and have been close to. So I was saddened to hear that my cousin Nina passed away today after a battle with cancer. Taken before her time, I could say, but then, she did so much with her life and with such passion that perhaps she was able to nail every day in a way that many of us cannot.

She was a good person, a fighter, compassionate and committed to helping the less well-off. My cousin by marriage, she remained so even after divorce, raising two children and working tirelessly in welfare despite having an early MS diagnosis. So cancer was really the unsought double-whammy that took her from us.

From New York originally, she followed my cousin Ben to Australia and set up a new life. Many times she told me what a wonderful country she had found, one that took care of its citizens. But in taking, she then gave back, leaving her new homeland a better place for her being here.

Bless you my cousin. May you now rest in peace.

As a part of my cunning plan to remain thoroughly up-to-date and modern, I have plunged into the works of P.G. Wodehouse, starting with a series concerning the butler Jeeves and idly rich air-head, Bertie Wooster. Wodehouse, a prolific writer, is not only a master of the comic short story plot, he has a particular gift for dialogue and an aptness of phrase that becomes immediately memorable.

There is nothing daunting or serious about this kind of writing, except that it is very clever and also very funny. It is also a little window into Edwardian and Georgian London, the rigid class structure and the conceits of those who possess more money than moral sense. The latter abound with comic regularity and are, often as not, bailed out by their social inferiors. The butler saves the day.

Wodehouse was interned during World War 2 (wrong place, wrong time) and faced a good deal of opprobrium when he broadcast a series of 'life in internment' pieces from Germany. Intended as light entertainment, he was shocked to find himself labelled a traitor, oblivious to the idea that the Nazi's would use his work as propaganda. But he was rehabilitated later in life and is highly regarded as a satirical writer.

I am waylaid by sports-related injuries at present. I can no longer swim as I once did, restricted by a torn shoulder tendon to a life of kick-boarding. And years and years of walking (and doubtless an earlier career in football) have wrought chaos on my knees, ankles and feet. It feels strange to walk so slowly - ambling short distances is not my thing. But here I am, looking for the nearest public transport stop at every turn.

These considerations are really only trifling. Relative to the trials of many others, they are mere scratches. Making adjustments to changed circumstances is a universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom. You either do it or you don't and if you don't, the game might be up.

So, I shall practice counting my blessings instead. 

Byways

Salad days,

Did I miss them?

Fond salad days,

Did I kiss them

Goodbye,

For a shot

At the serious?

To be more earnest,

When a sky

Of love and larkery

Beckoned?

Did I try to be

The old head 

Too soon?

Reckoned the one

To lunge at the tape,

Run up a score,

Make an escape -

By book and chalk

And a hammering

In my head.

It seems,

Whatever we do,

Whatever the talk,

It is all a kind,

Of hullabaloo.

Another school year begins - not for me, of course - but for the two teens housed under this leaky roof. Tom goes into Year 10 and JJ, Year 11. I have hopes that both of them will do as best as they can, understanding that this is probably the only time when a free education and no living expenses will co-exist for them.

JJ is well and truly embarked on a plan that she has devised herself, while Tom seems more amenable to staying the course until Year 12. The alternative is finding a job and I know that he now knows that the latter is quite a hard grind - five days a week for the foreseeable future. I also know that school is not everything - education happens everywhere - but the modern world seems to demand more and more specialised knowledge of the kind that happens in classrooms, laboratories and lecture theatres.

To be honest, I will happy if he is able to make it to class on time, stay in class and keep away from trouble. Is that asking too much?