Steinbock sculpture at the top of the Piz Nair cable car
The poem, Moaning Lake, that
I posted yesterday, is one I wrote during my stay in St Moritz last year when upon
our arrival last Christmas we were a bit disappointed that there was almost no
snow. Steve still loves to ski but all there was last year were some artificial
snow ski runs. There also seemed to be more people than usual walking around
with assorted part of the bodies in plaster because if you can’t make the turn
before going off the edge of a man made ski run, you can end up on the grass or
rock. Steve opted for more swimming and big afternoon walking sessions with me
instead and we had a wonderful time and the slightly irritating thing was that
snow arrived on the morning we left. Murphy’s Law strikes again.
St. Moritz boasts of 300 days a year of sunshine since it is
often above the clouds at 6000 feet. This year the snow is good on the higher
slopes, and the lake is already frozen hard and has been laid out with skating
and walking lanes. Last year when we got here it was not frozen at all and
still had the wonderful upside down mountains and forest reflected on the clear
surface of the St. Moritzersee.
Yesterday when I came to the
point of posting my poem about the lake, Gremlins struck, as they do now and
then in computer work. It was number 520 in my poetry file and I copied and
pasted it into my blog Dafs Diary and centred it. Then I imported a few
photo’s to compliment the page and hit ‘Publish’. On the draft is looked
perfectly ok but when I hit ‘View page’, Gremlins had attacked just one
verse. Everything else was as it was
intended but the third verse was mutilated. So I went back to draft and tried
to correct it. Two lines would not be central and one line, the first,
did not what anything to do with the rest of that verse. I tried a dozen times
to sort it out but I am a scribbler and not a computer genius. We have got guy
who is such a blessing to us both in our business and home computing; if we
have a glitch we call or text Jason and he remotely breaks into our computer
and puts naughty things right, its weird watching the curser move around on its
own. Yesterday was Christmas Eve and I was not going to disturb him due to my
pathetic abilities.
Steve was sitting at the
window with the binoculars searching for a Steinbock on the higher reaches of
the mountain. (I have mentioned before that I think he was a cat in another
life and this time he was searching for an animal that in thirty five years we
have only seen once). He heard me swearing and cursing at the computer and said
“Why don’t you just take that verse out because only you will notice”. WHAT!
I may well be the only
person who knows there is a story there in that poem and this is a vital part
where the surface ice creeps inch by inch, foot by foot, out from the shoreline
to reach the ice creeping out from the far shoreline. It is also one of the few
works that I have had any notable success with since last year the St. Moritz tourist office
put it up on their website after I sent it to them on an email. It was then
added to the Swiss Tourist board’s website, big jump up. I am just a little
woman writing to calm my soul and record my thoughts but still it is nice to
have something published, even in a small way. I do enter competitions; I do
read poetry publications who give free advice. The first advice I took was to
write six lines every day and make it a firm habit. That grew into this blog.
So, my point is that I am
very serious, if only to myself. However I don’t have time to cope with
computer Gremlins, so in the end rather than remove the whole work of that
poem, it was left as it was. That was a hard thing for me to do because I do
not like to be bullied and it seemed to me that technology itself was in a way
doing just that. It was annoying since I do like things to work out and as an
example I unpicked several hours embroidery recently because I was not happy
with how it looked.
Steve thought I was being
silly and wasting my time, which is true but as I reminded him this is my
pastime, my little mission and its not really a new thing since as a teenager I
fancied living in the Outer Hebrides for a
winter to try my hand at writing without being disturbed. Steve went back to
the search for the Steinbock.
This poem is an expression
of my horror at the terrorist attack in Berlin
and was written just a few days ago.
Berlin Christmas Market
A Christmas market place
A week before a religious
fest
When evil turned its sickest
face
As terrorist the accelerator
pressed
Holy thoughts on innocent
face
Find gifts for loved one’s
blessed
Bodies broken at horrors
pace
Fanatic finds children to
detest
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