At the alder-darkened brink/Where the stream slows to a lucid jet/I lean to the water, dinting its top with sweat,/And see, before I can drink,//A startled inchling trout/Of spotted near-transparency,/Trawling a shadow solider than he./He swerves now, darting out//To where, in a flicked slew/Of sparks and glittering silt, he weaves/Through stream-bed rocks, disturbing foundered leaves,/And butts then out of view//Beneath a sliding glass/Crazed by the skimming of a brace/Of burnished dragon-flies across its face,/In which deep cloudlets pass//And a white precipice/Of-mirrored-birch-trees-plunges-down/Toward where the azures of the zenith drown./How shall I drink all this?//Joy’s trick is to supply/Dry lips with what can cool and slake,/Leaving them/ dumbstruck also with an ache/Nothing can satisfy.//
I’ll just reprise that last stanza, if I may- Joy’s trick is to supply dry lips with what can cool and slake, leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache nothing can satisfy! Wonderful! Real poets can achieve in a hundred words what lesser mortals strive- and fail- to convey in a thousand! Real artists do this. And real artists smile at our imitations of their inimitable excellence because they know such homage is just a way of saying thank you for your service to all of humanity: [insert song]
Louis Armstrong- Satchmo- one of the true greats of music, achieved a hit in the UK with this song, reaching number one. I remember, because, as a world-weary cynic of the advanced age of 17 I told my parents that it was just sentimental tosh- or words to that effect! The site, discovermusic.com is much more accurate than that pimply, callow, youth of the late sixties living in the Glens of Antrim: For Armstrong, it told a story of possibility. With his craggy, weathered voice, he sang a song of hope that seemed to resonate with people everywhere. What made his performance magnetic was its poignancy: it was as if Armstrong, who was in his twilight years and ailing from a heart condition, was taking one last, appreciative look at life, and taking stock of the simple things that most people take for granted. “It seems to me, it ain’t the world that’s so bad, but what we’re doing to it,… All I’m saying is, see what a wonderful world it would be, if only we’d give it a chance.”
Well said, Satchmo. This reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi’s reply to a reporter’s question: What do you think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a good idea. Almost sixty years later, I agree with Satchmo that the world remains a wonderful place, in spite of all the forces that are ranged against it. And the wonder of the world encapsulated by Hamlen Brook in little over one hundred worlds is a marvel in itself. True artists don’t waste space, colour, music, material, words, or your time (and mine): unlike the scammers of various sorts in various guises who not only waste your time (and mine). But also, they seek to separate us from our money. Alas, too many victims are also separated from hope and joy and peace of mind shattered by the predatory wickedness of those whose place in one of the circles of hell is assured eternally- should cosmic justice be a thing! Old man, stop yelling at the clouds! Who said that?
Excuse me, now, as I step down off my soapbox. Where were we? Separation. Yes, that brings me to a song I wish to re-record. In one of the early Letters From Quotidia Episode 22, in fact, I recorded a song about separation that I was not entirely happy with. And, as I was wondering how to fix it, American poet, W. S. Merwin, astonished me with the way he compressed the meaning I was looking for into 20 words, including the title. His haiku-like poem, Separation goes: Your absence has gone through me/Like thread through a needle./Everything I do is stitched with its colour. I thought I was pretty clever way back when I wrote the song Unhallowed Ground using a series of similes and metaphors to tell of the separation of my wife from me in 1989 when we had to part for a couple of months. 146 words or, without repeats, 91. Pretty good, I thought. But for comparison let me reprise W. S. Merwin’s gem: Your absence has gone through me/Like thread through a needle./Everything I do is stitched with its colour. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? The song you are about to hear is much more autumnal, even wintery in its tone despite one summer reference. [insert song]
The greatest separation is, of course, death. W. S. Merwin wrote the following poem entitled, For The Anniversary Of My Death, Every year without knowing it I have passed the day/When the last fires will wave to me/And the silence will set out/Tireless traveller/Like the beam of a lightless star//Then I will no longer/Find myself in life-as-in-a-strange-garment/Surprised at the earth/And the love of one woman/And the shamelessness of men/As today writing after three days of rain/Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease/And bowing not knowing to what. W. S. Merwin died in 2019, aged 91 and Richard Wilbur who wrote Hamlen Brook, quoted at the beginning of the post, died in 2017, aged 96. Both men had a good, long innings, to use a metaphor from the game of cricket. When I was putting this post together, I thought, yeah, let’s compose something upbeat to season the sombre timbre of this episode. And as it happens, more often than not, and to use a phrase from Robert Burns, the best laid plans of men and mice aft gang agley. Which means, our most careful planning can fall to bits.
Burns composed his poem To a Mouse, with the epigraph On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785. His second stanza resonates with my near despair at what we are doing to the natural world, I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion/Has broken Nature’s social union,/An’ justifies that ill opinion,/Which makes thee startle,/At me, thy poor, earth-born/ companion,/An’ fellow-mortal! The concluding stanza states, Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!/The present only toucheth thee:/But Och! I backward cast my e’e,/On prospects drear!/An’ forward tho’ I canna see,/I guess an’ fear! My concluding song takes us to 1849 when a 19-year-old Christina Rossetti hooked my soul with her poignant poem, Remember.
As I read that wonderful sonnet, I picked up my guitar and started to strum in a stately bluegrass waltz time and within a few minutes I had the template for the final song of this post- chiefly because that amazing 19-year-old poet supplied me with the lyrics! Readers of Christina Rossetti’s lovely sonnet will note that I have used her words almost unaltered. [insert song] I hope the plangency of the music and poetry in this letter has not proved too much of a buzzkill as I believe the younger set defines anything that takes away from the fizzing and frenetic fulsomeness supplied by our eager consumption of the confections that comprise contemporary life for we fortunate few living in the lap of western consumerism: old man yelling at the clouds again, I fear. So, until we meet again in early July (dry or otherwise) do care and take care.
What a Wonderful World (words and music Bob Thiele and George David Weiss)
C G Am Em
I see trees of green, red roses too
Dm C E7 Am
I see them bloom, for me and you,
F G C
And I think to myself, What a wonderful world.
Verse 2
C G Am Em
I see skies of blue and clouds of white,
Dm C E7 Am
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night,
F G C
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Verse 3
G C
The colours of a rainbow are so pretty in the sky
G C
Are also on the faces of people going by
Am Em Am Em
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
Am Em C G
They’re really saying I love you.
Verse 4
C G Am Em
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
Dm C E7 Am
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know,
F G C
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
F G C
Yes I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
Unhallowed Ground (words and music Quentin Bega)
Feeling like unhallowed ground
An instrument without its sound
A pilgrim left without a creed
Like a meadow gone to seed
An empty rhythm in my head
Tells me I’m not really dead
Like a rhyme that I should know
Like that blackbird in the snow
You’ve been gone far too long
How am I to carry on
Hurry home I’m alone
Cold as earth before the dawn
Sunlight gathered in your eyes
Blue lakes under summer skies
Moonbeams played about your form
As your body kept me warm
You’ve been gone far too long
How am I to carry on
Hurry home I’m alone
Cold as earth before the dawn
Feeling like unhallowed ground
An instrument without its sound
A pilgrim left without a creed
Like a meadow gone to seed
A pilgrim left without a creed
Like a meadow gone to seed
Remember (lyrics Christina Rossetti music Quentin Bega)
Remember me when I am gone to that silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Remember me when I am gone to that silent land
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Remember me when I am gone to that silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
When you can no longer hold me
Credits: All written text, song lyrics and music (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.
Technical Stuff: Microphone- Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 9 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.
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