On Place and Promise by Leanne Toshiko Simpson 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters   PLAY AUDIO VERSION: voice of Leanne Toshiko Simpson   The writing retreat has a cat who refuses to come inside the house. That’s how you know it’s haunted, the Welsh girl beside me whispers. The only Welsh Prime Minister died here in this library, surrounded by thin slabs of poetry and a coastal view. He's buried a few minutes’ walk down the road, but I don’t visit. My room is above the library but the air is still in the nighttime, the house presiding over the grimness of Cardigan Bay. The beach downhill hides tiny pebbles in my runners but forgets me by the time I climb back up to the garden gates. At the edge of the slope, a ring of brambles directs my gaze west like a pinhole towards a sturdy stone cottage. Between us is empty farmland filled by the potent smell of a slow-moving silo, slathering the ground with thick manure.  [  >>>>>  FORWARD ]   + [Distillate © HA&L + Leanne Toshiko Simpson {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]