Beyond goodbye

Poems, and the indirect approach,

‘Spare a prayer for those following the ancient star-mynde in the Eastern Mediterranean just now.’ [1]

We join with others... there will be consequences. We should know the more immediate outcome by the end of this week. I left the above request at Martin Shaw’s ‘The House of Beasts and Vines’ on Sunday... I value his prayers… 

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Martin has suggested we should not name too much too directly, rather maintain an indirect approach, which brings me to art and harmony, and the art of poetry that Ezra Pound maintained should never stray too far from song, nor song from dance. How should we serve ‘the indirect approach’ [2], and the beauty of this world? ‘Out of all this beauty something must come’.[3]
I began this substack October 2022 with reviews of Jeremy Naydler’s book, ‘The Struggle for the Human future’. 
What is a human future, distinct from a mechanised one? When I am alone, my modern mind struggles. 
I have your company, this strange substack of thought and dreams, some part of a wider soul perhaps? This meanwhile, your words, your poems, the writing, the books … the seasons… the daily lives, this multiplicity of voices, the creatures who trust us… this all must create a subtle soil. [4]
I am serving up a few poems [5] today from my own journey, to sing while the star-mynde crosses the sea to the dangerous assignation.
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1.	Shaw’s spelling of ‘mynde’, when he wrote of the ancient ‘Christ-Mynde’ on Sunday.
2.	There is an indirect approach to human struggle; for sure we know about war, and the continuities of wars. Basil Liddell Hart the military expert and strategist in the inter-World War 1930s picked up an old thread from another tradition. Memorably, more than 60 years ago working in Canada, a glancing friendship gifted me Hart’s chapter in a 1970s book, ‘Civilian Defence’. Hart’s few pages reflected also on Spain and guerrilla warfare during the Peninsular Wars. (Have you ever seen a collection of Goya’s drawings?) Civil war in the ‘30s suggested to him that consequences recur. I was to wonder the same for Ireland for most of the next 30 years. 
3.	I have William Cookson’s ‘A Guide to the Cantos of Ezra Pound’; but turned up this page on the Pisan Cantos from that for me invaluable book, a connection also dated from  brief friendships. https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/48729/page/196 
4.	This morning Sadhbh Nicole reclaims the sound of her voice, and recently a rhythm of poetry from Marisol connects the forest floor more than metaphorically, with the loam of life.
5.‘Goodbye’ comes round often enough, but the return is often potent in the silence. 

I posted Avram Burgen, recently his resounding prophetic voice, and will return to the equally prophetic William Blake, who used the tools of beauty as much for the unlovely and terrible faces and drama of humanity. 
I have been tempted faraway to China, ancient and now, the view of the river from Beautiful Mountain, from an hour’s friendship in 2019 in front of the 2nd oldest Plane Tree in London… but these are for another day.
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Did I say goodbye?

Wind of upper air
Remembrance 
with no sound… 
Did I say goodbye
to those who now
sail like clouds past a star?…
You constantly dissolve
Like youth
confide with one another
best words …
Remember me, you say...

Bright colours like merriment... 

I see our soundless parting,
Our show, heart stopping
moments of love
So brief 
we are left ever waving.

(Rev. 27th July 2020)
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Words bubbled up: Borrowdale Aug 2001

Small winds visit,
Singing their songs;
Nature has wit to build
In time as well as stone.

In the coigne of the hills,
Buttress to an open heaven,
Comes wandering destiny
Like a tune in air,
At home anywhere,
A family, a child’s fabulous face
Quick and wreathed of an afternoon.
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Concert

Good night! Good night!
Players and the score are no more
Songs that were your breath
Are given to quiet air
An empty street
Full with the barely perceptible

(2021 September 26th)   

White owls of the rural silence
More like history
That kind of business,
Unconcerned flying at our shoulder
But vulnerable …

(2021 September 26th
Our owls, but also one borrowed from RS Thomas)