I Avoid Traffic On My Way To Radio Shropshire

I set off down the steep gradient of St Mary's Water Lane to the River Severn. It is not so steep as to be too much so. I cycle along the river path, bumping over the cobbled stretch under the bridges upon which Shrewsbury railway station is built. From here it's a flat run out to the weir.

The weir-water is calm and silvery-smooth: recent flooding turbulence is a memory - there's a hint of white froth bubbling the surface where the descending water rejoins the flow of the river.

The path ends in a road and the road runs by the river. Just past the island, a goose is being goosey - stretching its neck and greeting the morning. I pass joggers, cyclists, and early walkers. There are no cars. The air is clear, hopeful.

Often we nod to each other, us early-risers, say, “Hi!” in the conspiracy of those who know that to be up and out on a spring morning is one of the best things, especially as, despite everything being muddled and angry in some places, here the sunlight highlights the whites and pinks of blossom, searches out the lime green of emerging leaves.

The only cars are parked cars. I turn right through sleepy bungalows, and then right again onto the cycle path but then choose left, not the route to the canal path. The sign points to Mount Pleasant, as if that is a state of being that is still possible. A gradual gradient up, and yes, it's pleasant in the cool air, the cindered path just right for a bike, or for a walker, or for a bike and a walker passing going in apparently opposite directions. The walker adjusts his direction slightly, curves leftwards to leave me more space to pass, says, "Hello!".

Crossing the main road at the lights, I take to quiet residential streets for a while - then it's back to a cycle path over the railway bridge and past more houses, stirring into their Saturday. There's no jeopardy even in the last stretch, though it takes me, briefly, onto the main road.

At the radio studios, I chat with Liz, producer, and then Ryan Kennedy, and I catch up, talk poetry, talk the weather, talk the clocks changing. I get to Carol Caffrey's poem, read 'The Moorings'. It's as beautiful as this morning - holds loss, grief: is freefall with light grace, afloat with hope.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0736062 - I read Carol's poem at 39 mins 10 seconds

I Kill A Bird

On my way home today, I was driving into town - no more than 20 mph - when I noticed a bird flying in on the extreme right of my peripheral vision.  Its arc was wide and in a moment it had flown down and in towards the underside of my car.

Everything about this death seemed soft: my foot on the brake; the bird's low flight; the quiet thud of its body - bone and feather - against the wheel arch; the flurry I saw in my left wing mirror.  Even the scale of this loss -  perhaps a thrush? - seems soft, against all the other losses.

All evening, I've felt a blur of regret, a sense of what Gerard Manley Hopkins calls "cloy" in his devastatingly beautiful poem, Spring.  I've felt the ache of gratitude for all the life of this blustery Mayday - for "all this juice and all this joy", for the "rinse and ring" of it.