downhill. Manuel De Falla and a poem

Jota (from Manuel de Falla’s Suite populaire espagnole)

A

dance

perhaps

a dream

so as the

music builds

begins to reel

I lift my feet from

the pedals and freewheel

down winding roads down

steepening hills through verdant

English country lanes hedge and field

farm and village my vision blurred with

speed eyes tearing yellows and greens smeared

the scenery tumbling the ripped flags rags of colour

flapping happiness escaping like bubbles streaming

from my smile-stretched mouth a flood of unbearable

joy racing though my blood bitter-sweet as a memory apocryphal

the road levels the music slows drifts fades stops silence for a moment coasting the earth

turning under my feet the clouds gliding over my head and I am still drawn forward by this

unrelenting backward movement this undertow and I cannot turn back there’s no second ride I

brake                                                                                                                                   awake.  



Click on link to listen to Jota
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26JWcuIBB5M


Thank you for reading.I would very much welcome some comments.

NB The visual effect of this poem is better seen on a computer rather than a phone.

Science and poetry, the importance of being Ernest

Stamp collecting or the importance of being Ernest

A flock of pigeons, homing pigeons, in a blue sky,

Dance across my vision - like the shoals of floaters,

The smudges, that flicker and swim on my corneas,

Locked to the movement of my eyes – swish and sigh.

In the midst of the city, released from a jerry-built loft,

Amongst the urban sprawl, a sign switched on and off

That turns black to white, pepper to salt, they climb.

Catching the sun, they shimmer and shine – sublime.

Their flight seems coded, as rigid as semaphore;

Its significance invisibly sewn into the atmosphere.

They cut sharp angles with sudden turns; they loop

And swoop, shifting shapes, like a kaleidoscope. 

The formation stretches and contracts and each bird

Keeps its place; each one a cog in the machine,

A ghost; a haunting presence on the astral plane.

They careen overhead, a soft susurration heard

As urgent as any scientist’s prayer, or laugh.

They swarm; they glide; they build the very air -

At once here there everywhere nowhere;

Now out of sight.  What position? What path?

A quantum leap brings them back into orbit,

Pulls them back to a central point from which

A new arrangement of moves begins, each

One an infinitesimal big bang, an atom split,

A universe expanding … and for this moment,

A singular moment, I am the nucleus – potent,

Omniscient … but here comes the crunch;

The birds go to roost and what is left is a hunch

That the meaning is not in the message but

In the very idea that there is a message, that

The cat’s out of the bag but locked in a box.

So were still stuck with faith – it’s all just a hoax.

Click here for Ernest Rutherford

Click here to read about Schrodinger's cat