Early Music
The cat tries to pinch my chair
As I reach for the scribblepad.
Cleansed by Nelly Sachs' poetry
As she weeps for her Jewish nation
I think of Siegfried's grave in Mells churchyard
Which I could not spot yesterday.
Not far from Monsignor Ronald Knox
I was told later.
Jordi Savall was playing his gamba
Before the nave where the Countess of Oxford worshipped.
The foxhunting man was an inspiration
Of my youth and Sassoon capped it with the `War Poems'.
Pity he got married.
Ruined Mad Jack's image and his life.
The Catalan music of the Renaissance
When Arab and Troubador met.
From Gascony to Toledo and its wonderful translators.
And the Sephardic influence.
Adelard of Bath was at Toledo.
From Barcelona to Edinburgh
We are one culture in Europe.
Jordi's Hesperion XXI demonstrates that.
I had two pints of Butcombes
In the Talbot in Mells yesterday
And talked of the previous Saturday night in Bath Abbey.
Hesperion were like Paddy Moloney's Chieftains.
Virtuosi every one.
It is repeated on the radio next Monday night.
Before the nationstates
A Europe of the Regions: Catalonia.
I must buy some CDs.
Siegfried sleeps in Mells.
This postmodern newsletter is for him.
His grandchildren killed in the carcrash.
I know what it is like
To have a brilliant beginning to your life
Then to find it has all gone dreadfully wrong.
Nelly Sachs never lived to see presentday Israel.
Siegfried spent fifty Catholic years.
The rain stops and the cat heads for the catflap.
The poem is over.
Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: [log in to unmask]
Lynx: Poetry from Bath .......... http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
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