A Valediction

A February Morning

The late John Prine, in his song, Illegal Smile, sang:

When I woke up this morning

Things were looking bad

Seemed like total silence

Was the only friend I had.....

I feel like this, sometimes, but John is late, now, and in another song, he had this to sing:

When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand

Thank Him for more blessings than one man can stand

Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock and roll band

Check into a swell hotel; ain't the afterlife grand?

[Chorus]

And then I'm gonna get a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale,

Yeah, I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long

I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the Tilt-a-whirl

'Cause this old man is goin' to town

When I get to Heaven

Which is certainly more hopeful, though, when I woke early this morning, I had mixed feelings, to be honest. I made tea and read the paper, but pretty soon got sick of the news.

Then Phoebus-Apollo begins to rise, freckling the frosted grass and breathing day into night. I put on my boots and wander to the graveyard, as one does (I take the air in graveyards, when take the air I must ~ Beckett) where, ghost-like, a barn owl stares me down, his mask softly spooky like a konfused klansman:

The stones are still, and silent, and snowdrops are gathered to surround the dead:

It is peaceful.  Just me and the owl and some sleepy memories auf Gottes Acker (on God's acre).  The sun defrosts the snowdrops as the moss crawls across the sword.  If only there could be more such peace....

The owl has no rings, but his/her feathers, coloured from cinnamon to scallop roe, dusted with specks of black pepper above and lace white below are fine enough for me.  

I leave him to the quiet of the churchyard and walk up Eaton Drove, past Limekiln Plantation, on past Eaton Farm and the dusty barn (where the owl roosts) towards Sedgeford. Black-headed gulls, in their winter plumage, pick over the newly ploughed field toward Long Belt......

February is often a cold, grey month, and some years it just gets in the way between winter proper and spring, but today is a bright, sweet day, despite the chill.  I try to clear my head, discarding worries like empty shells, breathing daylight into my blood.  It is enough to be alive, knowing it isn't for ever. Nothing is for ever.  Trump, Putin, Starmer, Farage, Orban - and the rest - will all one day be dust, thank God.....  

It is enough to be alive, and the world around me is spinning - spinning strands of life into a fascinating web of intricacy, beautiful in this light.

I note a buzzard atop a budding tree in Sedgeford Carr. He/she sees me too and majestically lifts into the sky, then floats to heaven along the Heacham River valley, above St Mary's church.

I turn up the track towards Inmere Farm.  Two red kites scan the fields around me by Hardacre Wood, one swooping low as if to inspect me, the tail switching gently to steer the beautiful body across the drafts:

Then, down Fring Road, two hares, mistaking the bright day for March, play a mating game:

Where did she go?

Here I am!

Yes, there is love and wonder in the world, if only you can find it.....
Soon I am home again, and it's still only ten o'clock.  John Prine comes to mind again:

It's gonna be a long Monday

Sittin' all alone on a mountain

By a river that has no end

It's gonna be a long Monday

Stuck like the tick of a clock

That's come unwound - again

And again

Long Monday

But, as ever there are silver linings and there are clouds.  I walked this walk, and wrote this piece, thinking of my friend, novelist Simon Mawer, who died unexpectedly at the age of 76 a few days ago. My thoughts go out to Connie, Matthew and Julia, and to his grandchildren, who will grow without him now.  But I have to think pleasant thoughts of happy times.  Only a fortnight ago Simon contributed to the National Brain Appeal in response to my Coastal Path walk. And only last August we had a happy lunch in Ely.

And forty-five years or so ago we sat on his narrow terrace overlooking the village of Formello, north of Rome, sipping rosso from Torre in Pietra, putting the world to rights while the swifts screamed around, drinking the mosquitoes in the evening air, then mysteriously morphing into bats as the light faded, and night fell.

Now the night has really fallen.

Sleep well Simon.

December

For Santa Lucia

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's, 

Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks; 

The sun is spent, and now his flasks 

Send forth light squibs, no constant rays; 

The world's whole sap is sunk;

A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day

John Donne

St Lucie's day is actually December 13th, although in times past the celebration of this virgin martyr from Siracusa (died 304) coincided with the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere), which is December 21st.

In 2010 I wrote about this day in another piece, after interring my father's ashes on a snowy day in Hertfordshire (https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2012/12/a-nocturnal-upon-st-lucys-day.html)

And I am reminded every year when we reach this turning point, where hope will rise from the cold cold ground.

It will!

So far, this winter has not been too bad in Norfolk, and I have been walking the blues away, watching nature take its course.  The pink-footed geese flying out of The Wash in the mornings:

And over the village, towards the sugar beet fields as the sun rises

Redshank

And black-tailed godwit

Feeding in the muddy shallows, while a marsh harrier hunts among the reeds:

On farmland a buzzard takes warmth from the low-lying sun:

While frost still coats the fallen leaves:

A hare makes haste to avoid my lens:

And I miss, by a whisker, a shot of a weasel drinking from a rain pool on the track, and then, again too slow, I miss the barn owl that roosts in the barn by Sedgeford Carr.

But overhead under Lodge Hill, the jackdaws are playing chase, clattering in and out of the trees and chacking at each other in the leafless heights:

I note that the fairy houses are locked tight now, their occupants no doubt somewhere warm:

And I spook myself with the reflection of my doppelgänger where the path is water filled:

Time to move.  This time tomorrow I should be on the Danube - flow, river flow - and all this will join the splinters of other memories whirring in my head.  Life's a blur, but there is a crack in everything.....

That's how the light gets in.....

[Thank you Leonard....]

Since she enjoys her long night's festival, 

Let me prepare towards her, and let me call 

This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this 

Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.

Or, perhaps,

Sul mare luccica l’astro d’argento.

Placida è l’onda, prospero è il vento.

Sul mare luccica l’astro d’argento.

Placida è l’onda, prospero è il vento.

Venite all’agile barchetta mia,

Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!

Venite all’agile barchetta mia,

Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!

Santa Lucia

Traditional Neapolitan 

Guillaume Louis Cottrau (1797 - 1847)

Spring again.....

Resurrection

The Resurrection (Piero della Francesca) c 1460

I have this fresco on my bedroom wall (there is a copy in the Museo Civico of Sansepolcro, Piero della Francesca's native town).  Every morning I wake to the haunting gaze of the risen Christ, while I still feel as asleep as the four soldiers at his feet (the second from the left being Piero himself).  I am reminded that it is time to make a refreshing pot of tea.....

One reason I so love this painting is that resurrection does not just refer to the man arising from his sarcophagus (though I do feel a bit like that some mornings) - there is the resurrection of the natural world from dormant Winter (on our left) with its bare trees to verdant Spring to our right as life regenerates. Here is Persephone. Here is Osiris. Here is Eostre.....

This Spring, however, is different. The past winter was, for me, the hardest I remember.  Not in terms of the weather, no.  But in terms of loss, of dying.  In December, for the first time in almost forty years, I spent our wedding anniversary alone. Then Christmas, in the company of our two daughters, was again a first without Amanda. New Year; my birthday; Amanda's birthday..... these anniversaries passed in colourless silence. Yes, we visited Amanda in her Care Home. But, no, she could not really participate, or communicate, or recognise.

On top of which, for one reason or another, I didn't feel so good, and the darkness dragged on, well into March, with little sign of hope.

But then the days began to brighten, and, haltingly, there were signs of regeneration. The world seemed to be coming to life again - even if not for everyone. At Easter I took Amanda for a wheel along the prom at Hunstanton, and there were people on the beach!

And across the Marsh there are walkers on the Flood Bank - still attired against the wind, but enjoying the open air, with a blue sky reflected in the ground water.....

In the woods I hear the hopeful chant of the Chiffchaff:

 In the trees I spy a Nuthatch:

And then a busy little Treecreeper:

There was action all around. Birds displaying, and birds hunting, feeding, perhaps providing for the family:

Barn Owl

Marsh Harrier

Buzzard

Red Kite

Mallard

Birds everywhere.  At Titchwell RSPB I saw a distant  Spoonbill:

And Avocets combing the water:

A Redshank in the mud:

And a Meadow Pipit on a post:

And at home, in my garden, the Rosemary is in flower:

And the Cherry trees are blooming:

In this resurrection life is affirming, and the depression of winter begins to lift. My personal grief is nothing compared to others. It is very sad, for me, that I cannot walk across the land with Amanda as we did a year ago, and all the past years that we shared. But she is being looked after, and still has moments of cheer:

Things could be worse, and, I guess, it's best not to think too much about the future. I don't know how many more  Springs there will be - for you, for me, for the planet itself - so we must make the most of what we have today, and be grateful for the wonder that is this resurrection:

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf 
Like something almost being said; 
The recent buds relax and spread, 
Their greenness is a kind of grief. 

Is it that they are born again 
And we grow old? No, they die too, 
Their yearly trick of looking new 
Is written down in rings of grain. 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh 
In fullgrown thickness every May. 
Last year is dead, they seem to say, 
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin