Wrapping up well, I took my dog Bryn on a walk tonight. I stopped on a hill, high on my estate, to take a photograph (1) of the lights of Oldham, shining in the distance. Photographs 2 and 3 shows just what can happen when you’re taking a photograph while holding a dog lead and the damn dog decides to go for a run 😂
Maybe I’ve discovered a new art form. To go with the new puddle.
That’s almost a certain Neil Diamond song.
And I know I’ll be regretting saying that later when up in that heat box of an attic of mine that I sleep in. Or, rather, attempt to sleep in.
Although it’s not exactly cool, at least there is some respite from the day’s fire out here.
I’ve been sitting here for a while, light fading, darkness falling. There’s a bat flitting around these gardens, and a large dragonfly, large enough to have made my daughter scream if she’d have been out here with me, passed determinedly by, maybe heading for a place to settle.
That’s provoked two questions. 1: Do bats always flit ? And 2: Where do dragonflies sleep? Just a couple of more things to keep me awake during this hot August month.
Just thought I’d check in and see how you guys are, warm or cold, in lockdown or post-lockdown.
I’ve heard we may have another storm heading our way.
Here’s hoping.
This was Christmas Eve setting on the estate on which I live, viewed from the local church.
It is now 11.10pm, the frosting air punctured by flashing fairy lights and music spilling out from passing cars.
We are almost there. In this pregnant hour, from a deep Mancunian night, I wish you all a Merry Christmas, wherever and whenever this greeting finds you.
Thanks for flying with City Jackdaw.
From my poetry blog.
Midnight, July We writhe with a rage to know the unknowable, blind to great masses that dance in dark orbits. And a soft, summer wind on a night beneath stars is no balm. From somewhere a whistle casts a line, a fragile camaraderie in a world fell silent, where white moth-wing is riotous and a spider's touch carnal. ©AndrewJamesMurray
These are a few lines that I wrote the other night. Needs a lot doing with it.
Night Poem The loneliness of distraction; a question of language. Cravat pirate, hogging the turntable. Wait — to see the shooting stars tearing holes in the firmament. Name a rose after that velvet queen lost in the garden, painting portraits and hustling the elite for a pound. Taste the names of those gone before, their unfinished manifestos staked to scarlet trees. ©AndrewJamesMurray
Crow chasing Jackdaw
across the sky.
Cluster of clouds,
conglomerate.
©Andrew James Murray
Midnight, July
We writhe with a rage to know the unknowable, blind to great masses that dance in dark orbits. And a soft, summer wind on a night beneath stars is no balm. From somewhere a whistle casts a line, a fragile camaraderie in a world fell silent, where white moth-wing is riotous and a spider's touch carnal. ©Andrew James Murray
Things have been quiet, poetry wise. My book has now been realised, and I’ve been working on a final draft of a short story for a forthcoming anthology.
The first snow of winter came in last night, so I wrapped myself up warm and went for a walk to experience it. Along the way, the beginning of a new poem began to form in my mind. The land is slumbering, but creativity awakens.
In the hush of winter,
white lichen clings to trees,
life slumbers longÂ
into the early hours
of black glass.
It is a beginning.
I overheard a conversation today between two people. I didn’t intentionally listen, but they were sat behind me on the bus, and so I was a captive eavesdropper. They were talking about what their favourite time of the day was.
By favourite time, I don’t mean 2.34am, or 15.12pm. Rather, the portion of day that they preferred.
One announced that he was a morning person. The other snorted, claiming that he had always been a ‘night owl’.
As we carve up the year into seasons into months into weeks into days into hours, I suppose we cannot help but hold them to comparison and have preferences.
My favourite season is Winter. My favourite half of the year begins with Autumn. Or Fall, as they put it more poetically across the pond.
But what about my favourite time of the day?
I love twilight, that time when the daylight noticeably falters and fades. If I feel the need to get out for a walk, this would be my preferred time. There is a definite sense of the world settling down, of things moving at a slower rhythm. As dusk approaches, there is a welcoming of shadows.
We can get all technical about it. We can name and describe the different stages
But I don’t need to know this. It is more about experiencing the slowing of momentum, the effect on the senses, as the shadows grow, the air cools, and the blackbird greets the approaching night with its final song.
The blackbird is always the last bird that I hear.
The local herald that draws the line.
The Celts knew twilight as the time-between-time.
The time between time. I love that, a liminal time where boundaries blur. Â A distinct hinterland where thresholds are crossed.
This is a time of magic where the raucous slips into repose. Where the senses of clarity are undercut by dark imaginings.
This is the time that I find the most inspirational.
But what about you? Early bird or night owl?
Image from Wikipedia
City Jackdaw 