Every Grain of Sand

She sells sea shells on the sea shore.....

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need

When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed

There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere

Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

Bob Dylan

Every Grain of Sand

(1981)

December 12th, 2024. This would be my (Amanda's and my) fortieth wedding anniversary, but, hey!  Every day is something.  Every day is someone's birthday, someone's death day.  Time spins on, picking up fluff, leaving stuff behind.  

What you can do?

I set out from home, in Snettisham, and walk over Ken Hill, and across the marsh, filling now with wetness, becoming slowly impassable, to the shore of the Wash.

The sky is heavy, though clouds and azure vie for attention. The tide is well out and there is no one about. I head towards Hunstanton, a six and a half mile walk, to make the best of a winter's day.  

The recent storms have caused havoc amongst the inhabitants of the estuary, and there are hundreds of lost-life forms. Starfish, wrecked and lifeless abound in different configurations:

Their 'little' (what does that say?) lives drowned away by the whipping of the wind and the turmoil of the sea.  

Youthful flatfish, maybe dabs, or immature plaice (help me someone?) turn their right-sided eyes to the sky in premature oblivion:

Razor clams:

Whelks:

Their spent seed-cases:

Crabs:

And urchins:

All lie exhausted and empty on the beach, the impulses and instincts of life extinguished by the very nature that gave them being.

Human intervention makes no difference:

The sky lowers. Drizzle blurs my vision. A flag shrugs in the distance:

Someone wanders into my sightline, another lonely figure in an empty seascape. It could be good to exchange thoughts, but there is some unspoken barrier between us, so I keep moving on:

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea

Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me

I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man

Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand

Forty years ago today something wonderful came to pass, but now it is over and the world spins on. I am so grateful for the love we had, and for all that is still good in this world.

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake

Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break

In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand

In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

Bob Dylan

Every Grain of Sand

Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music

Now, please repeat after me, one of my paternal grandfather's favourite tongue twisters:

She sells sea shells on the sea shore......

Stormy Weather

Every Grain of Sand (again....)

Almost a year ago, settling in to our new home in Norfolk and exploring the area, especially the   never-ending sandy beaches on the north coast, I pieced together some thoughts and pictures and quoted from Bob Dylan. You may remember. You may be tired of my rehearsal of these words. You may, as many do, gloss over the words and leaf through the pics as if it were a well-thumbed magazine in the dentist's waiting room. However, this time I am not questioning Dylan's Christianity.....

There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere

Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

I am still wandering the windswept/stormy acres of sand. Still trying to catch the birds.....

It's stormy weather, as the wind whips the bamboo at the head of our garden and scours the beach at Holme-next-the-sea. It's February, but not cold, not like it was sixty-plus years ago when I was a kid.

In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand

In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

I have respect for Bob Dylan: his thoughts, his words, his music.  I don't always love his work; I have doubts, sometimes, about the lasting value of some of his observations, but that is chicken feed when you consider the wealth, and breadth, of his output.  

I have always loved this particular song (in all its versions - whether a dog barks in the background of the 1980 demo; on 1981's Shot of Love, live on Trouble no More; in Nana Mouskouri's quavering waterfall impression; in Emmylou Harris's limping soprano, Barb Jungr's crisp Rochdale air  or Chrissie Hynde's smoky contralto) notwithstanding details of the text and the way it arose during his uncertain support of reborn christian dogma.....

A Drift of Snow Buntings

I relate to the essential message, which, I think, is that (regardless of whether or not there is a god) we should not exaggerate our importance.  We humans, like every sparrow falling, should only see ourselves as tiny fragments of the world; an insignificance that should never merit more than a moment's attention...

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear

Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer

My days may be in the yellow leaf, but our sandy walks are invigorating, the birds showering past....

A Deceit of Lapwings

I feel tired a lot of the time. It has been a weary two years, and little in the news brings lightness or relief. For some reason an image keeps recurring to me.  I was about twelve years old, and a friend had roped me in to being a runner at the Bucks County Show, carrying results from the rings to the judges tent. I was careering along with a fistful of dockets when I noted four men walking purposely against my direction.  

As I passed I saw that one of them was Harold Macmillan, the then Prime Minister.  He wore brown brogues, greenish tweed breeks and a loose jacket. His moustache was stained with nicotine and I felt his eyes, though heavily lidded and hooded by his hat, seemed to be taking in everything around.  It was a fleeting moment in time, but it has stuck with me.  He was, I cannot help but feel (though what do I know?) a man of energy and integrity.  The shame of it is that I also feel that that moment in time was perhaps the last when we had a Prime Minister worthy of the title - certainly the current incumbent is a national disgrace....

The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way

To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay

Shadowy thoughts bother my mind, randomly troubling my days. Our daughter Sarah is over from her home in Australia to spend a little time with her mother.  

.... onward in my journey I come to understand

That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand

When we walk in the Norfolk air, especially on blustery days, I breathe deeply and am grateful that things are not worse.  My own story is nothing like these lines: 

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night

In the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

Though I can share something of these:

In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space

In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face

Putting things into perspective is a part of learning to live. Stepping out on the tidal sands, looking out to the cold North, we are at the mercy of the elements, and, though we may aspire to control climate change, the probability is that our collective efforts will have little impact. We may perhaps slow the pace of global warming, but we could never have stopped an Ice Age, and I fear that as things are the progressive greed of generations will lay waste this beautiful planet.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea

Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me

I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man

Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand

Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music

Oh, yeah

Life is bad

Gloom and misery everywhere

Stormy weather, stormy weather

And I just can get my poor self together

Oh, I'm weary all of the time

The time, so weary all of the time

Stormy Weather

Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler

Every Grain of Sand

 

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.....

The North Norfolk Coast near Holme-next-the-sea

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need

When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed

There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere

Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

A Dunnock

Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake

Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break

In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand

In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

Time passes.  Whether high on Everest or low on the Dead Sea, time passes.  From ashes to ashes, dust to dust, (if the women don't get you the liquor must....)

This is not morbidity.  We come from nothing, and to nothing we go.  

Or, perhaps, at least, so I believe.....

Brent Geese

The phone rang in my car.  I was about to park but was on hands free.  He's been taken to hospital.....  He will probably be back home this afternoon.  I just thought you should know.....

You never know when the reaper will reap.  We must live this day like no other.  Every day is precious, for it won't come again.  

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame

And every time I pass that way I always hear my name

Then onward in my journey I come to understand

That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand

All Saints, Fring

I could pick bones with Mr Dylan.  Though he would indubitably better me at the game. But I was never convinced by his Christianity..... I was never really convinced by Christianity myself, and for someone to embrace it as a whole new discovery never rang true with me.

I was never convinced by his harmonica playing, either.  While Donovan may have made his mouth organ sound like someone blowing soup through a comb....  I think Bob Dylan was always a little random, a little loose - just as Larry Adler was too tight, too smart.  Sometimes it is painful to play Mr Dylan's finest pieces now just because of the harmonica breaks (Has anybody got an E harmonica?)  If you really want to hear the blues harp as it was intended to be, seek out Sonny Boy Williamson II (Alex - Rice - Miller) and his recording of Help Me.....   [Or Folk Festival of the Blues, 1963, Bring It On Home]

But I digress..... (as one is wont to do these days) and I should thank (sic) more clearly.  

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.....

When we were young, and carefree, we didn't expect life to become harder.  Being young was hard enough.  Til death us do part was a joke.  If we married we would marry for enduring love and good time, with either partner as grateful as the other.  

Plough that furrow.  Harrow that field.....

And the church was no help.  At least not to me.  If God had a place in the world, it was a place in our culture.  Informing characters and plots in fiction.  Guiding the moral decisions of law-makers and teachers.  God was not someone close to me.....

St Mary, Titchwell

But now.....  Now the  churches are empty, their shells protecting forgotten histories, holding echoes of hymns carelessly sung, or prayers vainly directed to selves long buried in the grounds around.....

All Saints, Bircham Newton

Yes, now.  Like Faustus I regret my insouciance. Forgive me my blasphemy, God?  Take me back?  Let me be untouched by the rigours of uncertainty.  Leave me untouched by the pains of death?

Let my wife alone.....

All Saints, Bircham Newton

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear

Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer

The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way

To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay

And then the Church reminds us of conflict and plague.  Deaths unexpected.  Youths, of various nations, brought suddenly to the ground.....

St Mary, Great Bircham

But the sky still surrounds us, unsettled and uncertain.....

And the crowning virus appears where you  may not expect it....

So we walk the shores with the wind and the waves......

The Royal West Norfolk Golf Club, Brancaster

Disturbing the one-legged Oyster Catchers.....

And tripping over the remnants of wars long past.....

Remains of a military tracked vehicle on the beach at Titchwell

The Avocet's name is unfortunate, perhaps.  It reminds me of 'Exocet' and all that that entails.  But I marvel still at the sleek irregularity as one slips past me at Titchwell.  Such a razor sharp  outfit.  Such a confident flight.....

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night

In the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light

In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space

In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face

Reedbeds and Marsh at Brancaster

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea

Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me

I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man

Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand

The beach at Hunstanton

BOB DYLAN 

 © 1981 by Special Rider Music