Beltane (The Rise of an April Leaf)

The rise of the subtitle ("Rise of an April Leaf") implies the fall and in this poem the leaf at its unfurling nervously considers its mortality and all the things that can go wrong. The second voice representing all the things urging it on - sun, spring etc - riffs on the old moral 'he who saves himself loses himself'

Puckered,
Helpless,
Grizzly,
Clenched
Ugly as a newborn face;
Scared to let myself go:
And where can I go
Except towards death?
And what if I grow
In the wrong directions,
Abnormal or twisted,
And how do you do it anyway?
Thoughts crumpled,
Feelings crushed.
Perhaps I’m not even a leaf?
Just scared to stand out
From the crowded branches?
So what am I? – yellow?
Or just painfully shy
Soft virgin green
Closed against the urging sun?
Do I have to do anything?
Will I just become – me?
Or do I have to force myself out?
Safer to sit tight;
But then I get scared
The rest of the branch
Which had seemed so wooden
Is unfolding faster;
Best to let go then;
But what if my flower
Hardly out of bud
Gets pollinated?

The May blossom light
Of the still warm evening;
The birdsong high
Above distant traffic:
The Sun become mild
And expansive, beaming:
The breathless wind:
All give their answer:
He who saves his dances

Will never be a dancer.

© Gareth Calway and first published in 'Encounter' Magazine in April 1987.
Watch the video on YouTube youtu.be/0K8LiK9rFlA

Marie Mouri

‪@PeacocksTaleMusic‬ for all our 250 plus videos A very sad song but a joy to play    • Marie Mouri by Peacock's Tale Musical...   Same recording technique and target sound as Pallet On Your Floor. lyrics Chère 'tit zozo quoi t'apré fé? T'apré sauter, t'apré chanter To pas connais n'a p'us Marie Marie mouri, Marie mouri 'Tits herbe tout vert, 'tits herbe tout moux Faut p'us to fais un lit pou nous To pas connais n'a p'us Marie Marie mouri, Marie mouri Quand jou fini n'a p'you soleil Quand nuit fini n'a pas sommeil Quand monde content mo p'us ca ri Marie mouri, Marie mouri credits from Untied States of Americana (LP), track released January 24, 2022 peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/untie…mericana-lp Maz - guitar, vocal; Gaz - drum & bass. A David L. Greely song which we learned in the version by Linda Ronstadt/ Anna Savoy.

Septuacentenary of a Parish Church

scenes from the Passion 
in an Easterly procession
line a Norfolk lane
and heavens above

turn heaven-lent snowdrops
through an orientation
to daffodils of fire…
through death
we remember 
with bread
poppies
wine
music
good 
words
thoughts
deeds
to 
LOVE

A real communion with infinite repercussions
Bringing all Faiths together like beads on one string
(Though whether preventing, or after, a Flood, God knows.)
I am Not. You and I are not We but One.

Let there be:

Light broad-churched in through
angel wing mirror-rainbowed
clean glass, open door

ONE
heaven-blue earth-green blood-stained 
eastern window;

An orientation; a turn to the East.

This Early English new build that went up all in one go
(The Tower taking a tad longer) as English emerged
From Norman French as the national language. And
Structurally stable for seven hundred years.
Unusual. Amid a green and pleasant, wooded farmland
(Non-Satanic mills!) well pastored, well wardened,
Well furnished with flowers, cheerful, friendly,
On a well-lit, airy hill and reached by idyllic lanes. A
Congregation with an ear for a Book of Common Prayer,
An uncommon hymn and a warm word of welcome. This
Is the heart of the matter. This has lasted. This is eternal.

Genesis of a Church (Fring All Saints AD 1330)

Genesis of A Church, Fring, 1330 AD

 

 

On this higher ground

Let us house an altar

Where the Word may resound

Through time, prayer and psalter.

 

On this heavenly spur

Let us grow a tower

Where the great stir of Easter

May bud, leaf and flower.

 

He cam also stille

Ther his moder was

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the gras.[1]

 

Defeats, factions, debts,

A weak tyrant king’s

Gone the way of all flesh

Burns for higher things[2].

 

In these emerald trees

Lifting monks’ eyes above

Earthy labour, dis-ease,

Let us sing divine love.

 

He cam also stille

To his modres bowr

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the flowr.

 

In these sandcastle days,

A boy on the throne[3],

Let us hold fast and raise

Firm foundations of stone.

 

Let here be Light

To summer the heart

Through spring, heyday, fall, blight,

Candling the dark.

 

He cam also stille

Ther his moder lay

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the spray.

 

Let here be stillness

On strips, hill, vale, farm,

Green pastures and waters

That flow like a Psalm.

 

Frea’s[4] folk, we are grass, bone,

We come to pass;

But soul-fashioned stone,

We build to last.

 

 

 

 

---

[1] The refrains in italics are from an anonymous mediaeval lyric about the Annunciation.

[2] Edward II, murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327, his reign defined by usurping nobles and humiliating defeats in Scotland.

[3] Edward III, heir at 14, 18 when he assumed direct control in 1330. 

[4] The place name Fring is according to the ONC “probably ‘ingas’ (the settlement of) the family or followers of a Saxon named Frea.” That his name may be a nod to the Norse goddess Freya (from whence ‘Friday’ ‘Freya’s day) is a poetic reminder that churches were typically built on sites sacred to earlier faiths. The beautiful natural setting on a low hill overlooking a timeless rural England is strikingly numinous.

Jackson

Hello we're Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash...

We got married in a fever
Hotter than a pepper sprout
We've been talkin' 'bout Jackson
Ever since the fire went out

I'm goin' to Jackson
I'm gonna mess around
Yeah, I'm goin' to Jackson
Look out Jackson town

Well, go on down to Jackson
Go ahead and wreck your health
Go play your hand you big-talkin' man, make a big fool of yourself
Yeah, go to Jackson
Go comb your hair
Honey, I'm gonna snowball Jackson
See if I care

When I breeze into that city
People gonna stoop and bow, (hah)
All them women gonna make me
Teach 'em what they don't know how

I'm goin' to Jackson
You turn-a loose-a my coat
'Cause I'm goin' to Jackson
"Goodbye, " that's all she wrote

But they'll laugh at you in Jackson
And I'll be dancin' on a Pony Keg
They'll lead you 'round town like a scalded hound
With your tail tucked between your legs

Yeah, go to Jackson
You big-talkin' man
And I'll be waitin' in Jackson
Behind my Jaypan Fan

Well now, we got married in a fever
Hotter than a pepper Sprout
We've been talkin' 'bout Jackson
Ever since the fire went out

I'm goin' to Jackson
And that's a fact
Yeah, we're goin' to Jackson
Ain't never comin' back

We got married in a fever
Hotter than a pepper sprout'
And we've been talkin' 'bout Jackson
Ever since the fire went...

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Jerry Leiber / Billy Edd Wheeler

Jackson lyrics © Sony/atv Tunes Llc, Sony/atv Songs Llc, Bexhill Music Corp., Bexhill Music Co., Gimbel Music Group, Inc., Leiber Music/stoller Music

She's Leaving Home

Our cover of the song in which the She of She Loves You grows up and Leaves Home, the ultimate generation gap song by the band whose music defined that time. For a band that with their upbeat update of fifties rock n roll ("roll over Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news") basically composed the soundtrack of the generation gap ("anything that you want... we can do" "there's a place where I can go...and it's my mind" "money can't buy me love" "it's getting better all the time" and see track 1) they could also be surprisingly un-partisan and generous about it. Compare this song with the Who's proto-punk "My Generation" for instance. I would contend, however, that their very ability to transcend the conflict and empathise achingly with both sides in songs like this was why they largely won the argument for their own side. (Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" follows this lead in this a few years later.) It would have been a cheap trick to sing a hippy credo like "Love is the one thing that money can't buy"( A band that embraced Lennon's brilliant angry young man cover of "Money" and McCartney's manna-querying "Did you think that money was heaven sent?" weren't going to fall or expect us to for that. It's not that the mortified parents in this song don't love their daughter (or more accurately the 'baby' they remember. They just don't know who she is. We precede the song with an extract from my (work in progress) Beatles novel "All About The Girl": June 18, 1967. Absent Father’s Day: because real men didn’t have their own day then. President Johnson may have proclaimed a Day honouring fathers in America that President Nixon would make law and a permanent national holiday in 1972 but in Swinging London the Pepper-hot BBC Beatles, currently rehearsing All You Need Is Love for the world’s first live satellite broadcast, were voicing the daughters and sons beyond their command. She’s Leaving Home and, essentially, I’m Leaving with her. She sheds our Parents a musical Note about living alone for so many years which leaves Wicked Stepmother Mary nose-cold and dry-eyed on the top of the world and Absent Dad, when he finally gets home, feeling even more sorry for himself than usual. In a minimalist, open-heart grief-lyric (taut heart-strings tuned on those understated short stories Paperback Writer and Eleanor Rigby) Mother Mary picks up the letter that’s lying there; is standing alone at the top of the stair, before she, and the held musical Note, and the audience hanging on it, break... down… and cry to her husband, 'DADDY, OUR BABY'S GONE!'

E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins 
F#m7/B B9
Silently closing her bedroom door
F#m7/B B9
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more

E Bm F#m C#m F#7
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching a handkerchief
F#m7/B B9
Quietly turning the backdoor key
F#m7/B B9
Stepping outside she is free


[Chorus]
E
She (We gave her most of our lives.)
E
Is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives.)
E Bm6
Home (We gave her everything money could ^ ^ ^ 
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
She's leaving home after living alone for so many years
buy

[Verse]
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown,
F#m7/B B9
Picks up the letter that's lying there.
F#m7/B B9
Standing alone at the top of the stairs,

E Bm F#m C#m F#7
She breaks down and cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's gone!"
F#m7/B B9
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly?
F#m7/B B9
How could she do this to me?


[Chorus]
E
She (We never thought of ourselves.)
E
Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves.)
E Bm6
Home (We struggled hard all our lives to get ^ ^ ^ 
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
She's leaving home after living alone for so many years
by

[Verse]
E Bm F#m C#m F#7
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away
F#m7/B B9
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
F#m7/B B9
Meeting a man from the motor trade


[Chorus]
E
She (What did we do that was wrong?)
E
Is having (We didn't know it was wrong.)
E Bm6
Fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't 
C#m F#7 C#m F#7
Something inside that was always denied for so many years
buy

CODA
C#m7 F# A E
She's leaving home (bye bye)

credits

from It Was 60 Years Ago Today (LP), released February 4, 2023

license