Sublime

am in Mustique, a tiny island in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. More specifically in my ‘writer’s cottage’, a new study-cum-library some distance from the main house, built solely for one purpose – to permit me to write whatever I damn please in peace and quiet. Which is usually poetry, by the way.

To my eternal delight, the wreck of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s flagship, preserved its firewood deep in its hull for the marine archaeologists to find and bring to the surface in the late 1970s. What was found matched almost exactly the wish list of a Tudor cook and the regulations governing the sale of firewood. Over 600 logs were found, comprisi

Thinking of what lies beyond these stone walls makes me want to rip off this dress, and escape this castle. I want to tear through the untamed grass and feel the wild dandelions between my toes. I want to smell the pine trees, and hear the wind howling through the mountains.