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)

The Turning World

Looking for a sense of perspective.....

Birds scrawl across the sky above the muddy flats of the Wash, dots on my vision, each to his or her own.  Distant trees and pylons speak of the old and the new.  

Conflated ideas of time rise towards the clouds.

It is the first time I have been out for three weeks.  My world is flat and empty.  It has rained.  The winds have thrashed against my walls and the roads have been under water.

A brief respite and I walk down the broken concrete path towards the flood bank. To one side I see a Muntjac pointing her dark eyes at me.  

A Marsh Harrier strafes the muddy field for hapless prey.

Along the hedgerow the blackthorn fires its salvoes, frosting the scrub in thousands of bright flowers, luring sleepy bees from their winter repose.

In the lagoon I spot a lonely young male goldeneye, diving amongst a waggle of heavy greylags.  The best is yet to come; I wish him luck in his watery life.

And not far away a pair of wigeon float along, bobbing sedately in the security of their partnership.  

The pink-feet have gone from the Wash now, making their ways to the deep north.  I miss their chattering skeins at dawn over the village, families of geese that whiffle together to the sugar-beet fields inland.  And I miss their returning flights in the dusk, their voices quieter as they slip toward their sleep. 

But there are plenty of waders out on the mud and at the tide line.  Bar-tailed Godwits:

Swarms of them, flickering above the Shelduck, Oystercatchers and Curlew that are not quite so flighty.

It is peaceful here.  Many times I walked this way with Amanda, and last Autumn I brought her here in her wheelchair, no longer able to support her own weight.  I am sad as I watch the world turning, as the cycle of life revolves.  But that is the way it is.  I am not alone.  We will all lose someone, or they will lose us.  There is no other way.

I know that.

But it doesn't make it easier.....

The clouds build up.

And then they will disperse.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

T.S. Eliot

Burnt Norton

And as the darkness intensifies, peace comes dropping slow.  

Take my hand. 

 God is love.

Or maybe, Love is God.....

For King and Country

 On a wing and a prayer

In 1964 Joseph Losey directed Tom Courtenay, Dirk Bogarde and Leo McKern in a film, wrapped in eighteen days at Shepperton Studios on a budget of just £100,000.  This was For King and Country.  

During World War I, the British troops are entrenched at Passchendaele, Belgium. Amongst the volunteers, there is a young British soldier, Private Arthur James Hamp (Sir Tom Courtenay), who is the sole survivor of his original company. Hamp spent three years in the trenches, and this makes him a veteran. He has never been accused of cowardice, but one day, he simply decides to leave the war behind him and walk all the way home to Britain. In Calais, France, he is challenged by a Military Police patrol, who promptly arrests him for leaving without permission. Hamp's commanding officers decide to convene a court-martial and charge him with desertion. If found guilty, Hamp could be shot by a firing squad. Captain Hargreaves (Sir Dirk Bogarde) is assigned to be Hamp's defending attorney, but he seems sceptical about the deserter's chances of acquittal. During their first talk, Captain Hargreaves is impressed by his client's utter sincerity and naivete. He learns that his client volunteered on a dare by his friends back home, spent three years in the front-line trenches, remained sole survivor of his company, and that he decided to leave the war and return home. When Hargreaves asks Hamp why he decided to leave the war, Hamp simply says that he got tired of watching his comrades die, and that the noises of war made him sick. On top of that, Hamp argued he received news from home about his wife's unfaithfulness. All of these reasons made him want to leave the war behind and return home to England. Captain Hargreaves remains unsympathetic. The military doctor's report indicated that deserter Hamp does not suffer from shell-shock and Captain Hargreaves accepts that fact. However, suspecting that his client's case is a more complex and peculiar case, Captain Hargreaves believes that Hamp is not responsible for his actions. He prepares the best he can for the upcoming court-martial.....

What has that got to do with the price of fish?  I hear you clamour.  Well, here's a quote from the film.  The officer in charge of the court-martial asks Dirk Bogarde if Tom Courtenay is a lunatic, and then says:  There must be hundreds of thousands of men who are in an unhappy mental state but who have not absented themselves from their duty.....

And at some time tomorrow (May 6th 2023, as I write) the Archbishop of Canterbury will invite us all to swear an oath of allegiance to someone whose family name used to be Battenberg.  

[I sometimes go by other names..... but I don't swear by them]

Please don't misunderstand.  I have nothing, absolutely nothing, against Charles, but I cannot forget Peter Cook (as an agent) auditioning (the one-legged) Dudley Moore (Mr Spiggot) for the role of Tarzan.  Your right leg, I like, says Mr Cook, It's a lovely leg for the role.......  I've got nothing against your right leg.  

The trouble is, neither have you.....

In my world (I shouldn't say that - it isn't my world) the hierarchy is not god-given, nor is it inherited.  There's a food chain, and so be it, but the worm doesn't need to turn.  The worm is a worm; the hawk is a hawk.

In the following sequence you can see a male Marsh Harrier passing something to his partner, while a distressed Lapwing looks on.  The female drops the package, but then swoops down to try to make amends:

And such, is life.....

Private Arthur James Hamp was executed for his innocence.  And things have not changed.

In another corner of the universe, a Mute Swan needs to take to the wing. Does it pray as well? Or is it just a myth? 

Leda, where is she now?

And that Grey Heron (the one in the picture above) takes umbrage and lifts away, strong but touchy, proud but in disregard of the rules.

And then settles, ruffled but unthreatened by arrogance or questions about his mental equilibrium:

Forgive me, but this has nothing to do with nothing. I have nothing against Charles's right leg, nor against his right to life, but there are fundamental questions about sanity that still need to be explored, and when someone spends £250 million pounds (of taxpayers' money) on an unnecessary attempt to gain popularity when that money could have helped save a life, or a species, I retain the right to raise an eyebrow....

With very much love......

F**King & C*untry

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