A way of stringing words together

Apologies (if anyone actually needs an apology for such a thing) for the silence here of late. I have some posts in my head but have been endeavouring to work on something elsewhere and get through the reading before I go to the Faithful Writer masterclass this weekend, which I am really looking forward to. Add to that the Moore College evening lectures, bible study, a couple of other things and a bit of fiddling about and weeknights seem to be disappearing.

The other night I was reading some of Mark Tredinnicks set readings for this up-coming class and I was hooked on the excerpt from The Blue Plateau. I don't always line up with his assessment of the state of humanity, but the writing is magnetic.

Here is the introductory paragraph to that and another piece of work:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

-Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

 I am made of pieces and of the spaces between them where other pieces used to be. I am a landscape of loss. Most of me is the memory of where else and who else and with whom, I have been and no longer am.

And so it is with the plateau; she too, is a landscape of loss.

-A Faster Kind of Sandstone

Mark Tredinnick

And this one made me laugh:

During a lull in the fiercest weather event the south-east of the continent has seen in thirty years - we call them 'events' these days, as though someone's putting them on - I went out on a Sunday morning and bought myself a book.

-A Storm and a Teacup

Mark Tredinnick

I am hoping that I can absorb some of this way of stringing words together.