Oct 11

Oct 11 Mixtape – October-Coloured

Here is today’s mixtape in the effort to live the words of Goethe, “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

1. A Song

You Are the Light by The Innocence Mission might be a little niche. It’s from the album birds of my neighbourhood which came out the year our daughter was born (1998) and which I played an awful lot about that time. From the lyrics:

And I would like to cry in the car
The blue violet hills and the voice of Neil Young
I left the flowers outside your door
Your curtains were flying though you were not at home

And I can only say that I have hoped for you
Safety from fears and darkness
Are you feeling better than before?

There's a hidden life for everyone
Sorrow remains and you can't tell no-one

I was quite enamoured with the vibe of the whole album, just the way a phrase repeated, like in “where does the time go?” just gets right into you with that thin and wispy voice of Karen Peris. There’s a new album coming out, end of November, and the first song from it is on le YouTube. Her voice will always remind me of the beginning of motherhood and all the magic and slowness and bittersweetness of it — one is all too aware of time when watching a child grow.

And the song above, the line, “are you better than before?” seems spoken to me now, all the way through time. Am I better than before? I think so, some days, yes. Mostly.

2. A Poem

Memory of my Father

by Patrick Kavanagh

Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.

That man I saw in Gardner Street
Stumbled on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.

And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London,
He too set me the riddle.

Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me:
"I was once your father."

{Source}

Whenever I see a poem by Patrick Kavanagh, I always think of my friend Michael McCarthy, who won the Patrick Kavanagh Award for a book he mainly wrote on his sabbatical in Edmonton, titled Birds’Nests and Other Poems. He talks about how we met, in his book, Like a Tree Cut Back, published by The Poetry Business.

The phrase “October-coloured weather” is one that evokes so much, so easily. I’m reminded of Michael so often lately — a phrase, a line of poetry, an accent, a bright eye. Most of our friendship until he died was by correspondence, though we’d talked of meeting up again. Then life got away. But I’d always expected it would happen.

3. A Picture

After seeing this video describing the painting below — Still Life with a Gilt Cup by Willem Claesz Heda, 1635 — on the instagram of the Rijksmuseum, I couldn’t resist sharing it today.

The still life is described as showing luxury items but they’re all very familiar seeming to most of us, I think, even if a plate of oysters isn’t in our budget or to our taste. You know I go on about the unwinding lemons a fair bit when it comes to still life. When I launched my book Apples on a Windowsill, my little still life demonstrations that I did as part of the readings were quite popular. I unwound a lemon in front of the audiences without slicing off my finger, so I was very proud of that :)

It’s always good to reflect upon reflections in a painting, I do believe. To just allow ourselves to feel a bit of awe that they could be so rendered in coloured mud. All of the textures in the painting, the glass, the pewter, the gold…and then the folds in the cloth and the shadows under the plates….so wonderful. The precariousness of the plates, and the tipped over goblet really are speaking to me right now. The fragility of the glass, the fragility of the world. All sorts of things unwinding…

We’re having a very long autumn, here where I live, which isn’t always the case. I’m grateful for it. It feels a good time to get quiet, get right with one’s soul. And to look at pictures and read poems and listen to songs. I hope you’re doing some of this yourselves!