Creative deficiencies?

Out to Llandough for the first Eucharist of the day and then on to Ystradowen for the second. I was struck by an enticing cooking aroma wafting over the churchyard from the Black Lion pub next door as I left for home. Lunch was on the table for me as soon as I returned - a cauliflower cheese, the first Clare's made for many years, thanks to a giant organic cauliflower in this week's veg box that'll do us at least four meals and still taste freshly picked, such is the quality of what we get from the Riverside Market Garden.

Clare had her monthly study group in Bristol in the afternoon, and that gave me time to review some text written in recent years for posting on my poetry blog. It's nearly four years since I last found time to do any work on this, and there's a lot of material from a collection of works going back nearly fifty years, which I haven't got properly named and sorted from the archive I started digitizing fifteen years ago. I've had all this free time to make good use of since retiring, and have written a huge amount but not reviewed what was once for me a treasured creative channel. 

Why so little written in the new millennium? A simple answer. Digital photography. It's twelve years since I bought my first Sony Cybershot, and found a means to relate to what I see that by-passes words. It's absorbed a great deal of my creative energy, and my ability to focus on what fascinates me - the interplay of shape and colour, light and shade. 

Returning to my book project 'Stones into Bread' to revise and update it recently was quite a challenge, as it involved re-shaping a volume of text and embedded argument in the light of helpful comment received. Working on even smaller amounts of text with a 'single eye', would perhaps be even more demanding. I've always waited for a moment of inspiration to guide poetic endeavour, rather than studying an idea or theme and working on it. Yet, funnily enough this is what happens when I take up a camera. 

There are places I return to in different weathers and seasons. Landscapes, townscapes, architecture, capturing broad visions, sweeps of colour, reflections, bold shapes and exquisite natural detail are things I return to. Poems, my kind of poems, are like snapshots, observations that awaken strong feelings. You can't capture that easily in a photo. Reviewing old material reminds me of something I may be lacking in creativity these days.