vagalam'

Strange morning fog

From yesterday's euphoria to the dampness of morning fog. Vagalam'...

I take it from 19th century French vague à l'âme, this undefined inner state of malaise, discomfort, type of melancholy... Peeping through my window, I watched greyness filling this world and thought of a better end to this spring break. A hooded crow perched on my neighbours' totem pole most of the morning. If I listen to shamanic wisdom, it is a sign of change and yet, back then, it looked so static. Here and then, a lone starling gathered nesting materials in secret... 
Now what's the connection with the picture above? I never really explained it when it was first published as a picture on the blog. Pure linguistics in a form of a word game.
Vague and lame in French mean wave. However, I was listening to Chopin on my iPod watching rollers that day and the great Polish master tainted what I usually feel as platitude when faced to the North Atlantic into his sense of melancholy. Hence Vagalam'.

And talking of iPod... 

I once chose this device to express two opposite states of emotions last month. Different type of verse to what I usually write. Healthy from a creative viewpoint and  well received at the Library on 26 March...

1.    Touch

asked to write about an object either taking pride/feeling guilty/angry from the viewpoint of that object.

i Touch

Slid ON and OFF in your pocket, I’m on stand-by.

all I feel is your finger tip, that gentle touch

right from your skin that connects you

with the rest of our secret world –

robin, blue bird…

pages, faces

where you can hide from loneliness.

out of touch

don’t even try to plug me in.

my icons froze

somewhere between 2 USBs,

I’m in that state, cold as a fish – I will need time to recover,

too many megabytes of pain,

today I will remain silent.

© Nat Hall 2010

Here comes the sunshine

The musician has changed.

And now fog dissipated I begin to smile again and even think of pushing it to Ninian once more before I make my way back to that headland in Lerwick...