Apparently, Robert Frost on being asked what one of his poems meant, replied;
“You want me to say it worse?”
I can imagine it. Wonderful.
Showing posts with label a transient grace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a transient grace. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Thursday, 29 July 2010
a brief moment with badgers
I’m writing this post as an afterthought but I wish to mark this day as my second ever sighting of a wild badger. Actually, there was a pair of them on this occasion so that makes three all told.
My first contact was but a little over a year ago. Given my age and the numbers of badger corpses you see scattered alongside any country road, it seems extraordinary that it’s taken so long to get to just three. I might have assumed it’s down to shyness but none of the three hardy specimens I encountered showed the least bit of coyness. The latter two ambled across the road, yards in front of our car, seemingly without the slightest sense of cautiousness. In fact, the hindmost one was intent on boisterous playfulness, nipping its leader on the side of the face in a similar way I’ve seen young dogs play.
Witnessing them like this, for just a short moment, I can’t understand how anyone can think of eradicating them from our countryside in the dubious belief that it best protects cattle from bovine TB. When was the last time a cow made you marvel at nature, never mind a plate of minced beef?
My first contact was but a little over a year ago. Given my age and the numbers of badger corpses you see scattered alongside any country road, it seems extraordinary that it’s taken so long to get to just three. I might have assumed it’s down to shyness but none of the three hardy specimens I encountered showed the least bit of coyness. The latter two ambled across the road, yards in front of our car, seemingly without the slightest sense of cautiousness. In fact, the hindmost one was intent on boisterous playfulness, nipping its leader on the side of the face in a similar way I’ve seen young dogs play.
Witnessing them like this, for just a short moment, I can’t understand how anyone can think of eradicating them from our countryside in the dubious belief that it best protects cattle from bovine TB. When was the last time a cow made you marvel at nature, never mind a plate of minced beef?
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
why milkmen whistle
In my world I find myself troubled by the lack of recreational whistling these days. I arrived at this, as always, through a circuitous route beginning with the song, The Milkman of Human Kindness, inexplicably coming to mind, and continuing around and around in my head for days. This song, performed on TOGWT, was the first time I’d noticed Billy Bragg and the lasting impression was how well the loneliness of the performance matched the pathos of the song. I think it was the use of electric guitar that helped in this: most one-man performers, I thought then, used an acoustic, the electric was for bands.
The very long serving milkman we had when I was a lad could have easily been nominated for the milkman of human kindness had such an honour existed. A youthful presence, though probably 30-ish, well-filled out yet short on being fat, with an open, round face, and hair my mum would have described as having been cut with a knife and fork. He carried a withered leather satchel on his front from which he often produced a flip-flap wallet which looked homemade of cardboard and criss-crossed elastic ribbon, and which, by magic and slight of hand, flip-flapped and entrapped your ten-bob or quid note beneath the elastic ribbons. And then he whistled. That’s the point, the whole point. You can get milk from the grocers around the corner, but you can’t get an early morning whistler come all weathers.
On his first day on the job, on our round, he came around our corner with an almighty crash. He asked my mum if she had a broom he could borrow. And a cardboard box for the broken glass. I miss the low sound of bottles hitting the doorstep and the high sound of bottles returning to the crate. He called you Sunshine, or Missus, or Squire, and he left an extra pint.
Billy Bragg had to appear a second time on TOGWT before I got him. The song, Levi Stubbs Tears. The circular working of the lyrics is wonderful, the story unfolds and eventually answers the intriguing question arising from the opening line. But most of all, he isn’t alone. The horn coming at the end simply sold it for me. I suppose he could have whistled it, like Lennon on Jealous Guy, or Redding on Dock of the Bay. I’m glad he didn’t. He went for the horn.
The very long serving milkman we had when I was a lad could have easily been nominated for the milkman of human kindness had such an honour existed. A youthful presence, though probably 30-ish, well-filled out yet short on being fat, with an open, round face, and hair my mum would have described as having been cut with a knife and fork. He carried a withered leather satchel on his front from which he often produced a flip-flap wallet which looked homemade of cardboard and criss-crossed elastic ribbon, and which, by magic and slight of hand, flip-flapped and entrapped your ten-bob or quid note beneath the elastic ribbons. And then he whistled. That’s the point, the whole point. You can get milk from the grocers around the corner, but you can’t get an early morning whistler come all weathers.
On his first day on the job, on our round, he came around our corner with an almighty crash. He asked my mum if she had a broom he could borrow. And a cardboard box for the broken glass. I miss the low sound of bottles hitting the doorstep and the high sound of bottles returning to the crate. He called you Sunshine, or Missus, or Squire, and he left an extra pint.
Billy Bragg had to appear a second time on TOGWT before I got him. The song, Levi Stubbs Tears. The circular working of the lyrics is wonderful, the story unfolds and eventually answers the intriguing question arising from the opening line. But most of all, he isn’t alone. The horn coming at the end simply sold it for me. I suppose he could have whistled it, like Lennon on Jealous Guy, or Redding on Dock of the Bay. I’m glad he didn’t. He went for the horn.
Friday, 6 November 2009
yesterday was tomorrow's today
Have you ever thought, there's not enough autobiographical documentary dance in the world today? Think about it right now; it's why we're in this mess.
Attention: Blogging event horizon has been breached. Do not.
Monday, 6 April 2009
a transient grace
By chance, as you do, I found myself switching part-way through a BBC Four documentary, Fish! A Japanese Obsession. Four middle-class gentlemen were standing in a shallow river fishing for an 'uncatchable' fish by challenging its territory with a similar fish on a line. When the incumbent fish comes to see the intruder off, it gets caught in a trail of hooks. The fish cannot be baited by normal means as it feeds entirely on rock algae and you can't bait a hook with that. The fish, an ayu, is a delicacy not least, I expect, because the season for catching it is short. Following tradition, the men then sat gathered around a fire on the riverbank to cook and eat their ayu fresh, and chatted.
Asked what appealed to them about this activity, one man said it was like the cherry blossom: it flowers quickly and quickly dies, a transient grace, it appeals to the Japanese. A transient grace, I liked the sound of that...
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