Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Crookt Age

It's winter. Change is in the air; I can smell it, like a faraway sea breeze that just catches the edge of the senses. It's too easy here to let the ebbs and flows and predictable routines sing the lullaby that things are just going to carry on, just as they are, and tomorrows will blur into others without a wrinkle on the smooth broadcloth of our lives.
And yet.
There is a cloud. Not a large one - just the size of a man's little finger at present, gathering momentum, perhaps. And then again, could be that I'd like the cloud to be there, imagining it growing before my eyes into a real perfect storm, carrying me - wherever.
Perhaps I'm responding subliminally to the unpredictable weather in Northern Europe - 40cm of snow on December 1st on Kielder Water is unheard-of.  I wonder when people are going to start talking about "when records began"?
I was reminded of Britten's impossibly difficult 'Spring Symphony', set to lyrics from George Chapman's 'Masque of the Twelve Months' Perhaps I'm beginning to feel my own crookt age...

"Shine out, fair Sun, with all your heat,
Show all your thousand-coloured light!
Black Winter freezes [to] his seat;
The grey wolf howls, he does so bite;
Crookt Age on three knees creeps the street;
And eats for cold his aching feet;
The stars in icicles arise."


2 comments:

  1. I'm sure you'll enjoy the change. Take your long johns.

    When I think of music and the seasons, Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' comes to mind, but then again, I prefer Mozart to Wagner, so liking fluffy pieces of music (as opposed to impossibly difficult works) is probably indicative of a head full of 'pink fluff and dollies' as one of our mutual friends might say.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pink fluff....? You're letting your imagination run away with you again. There's little fluff and none of it pink, last time I looked. I do hope our mutual friend was some distance away when he so roguishly commented. A separate continent, perhaps. Further than well-aimed missiles that's for sure. I would have been.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.