October Lament

..." a gathering of shining starlings

sitting slanted on an earthen roof "...

* 

...hoping for a murmuration one day...

*

A Poem for Thursday....Beyond Silence (with many thanks to S. Heaney)

Is it the rhythm of the wheels on the motorway surface or the rapidly changing landscape that stimulates my mind so much when we take long road trips. The radio is on...sharply relaxed in the seat by the potter...watching out for fools on the road. They love roads do fools...learnt that by my father's side as he taught me to drive in my teenage years.

Beyond Silence
Something beautiful happened
On our way down the M6
England's main blood line.
A great flock of starlings
and a murmuration! While
Snow spat down on us and 
The wind struck hard as iron.
Leaving us with only
A holy heavy silence.

Jazz x 2 in Berlin.

We held a garden party on Saturday here at the Potters House...

"Jazz in The Garden" ...

It was fun, and we raised some money for our local church,

well actually quite a lot of money when realised it was made by selling cake

and what wonderful cake!

But I digress....

I sing a bit and when I do it's.... lets say ...jazzy!

So to be taken to two jazz events in one day by my niece in Berlin, on my birthday, was a truly double delight.

First we made our way to Tauro Restaurant where there was a shady garden, a non-stop buffet of the most wonderful goodies and

 !!!oh!!!!

 joy of joys...a jazz quartet playing all of those smooth listening pieces that just go to help the food

 go down easy!

Just look at that elegant man in his snazzy grey suit and his fabulous shoes!

His black hair swept back...with... could that be the Brylcream look?

I adore the way he holds the mike...and that great old fashioned mike as well.

The music was mainly from the 20's and early 30's and we could have been there in the days of 

"The Blaue Reiter" art movement.

I didn't know at that point that we could up the jazz stakes in the same day...

...but we did!

We walked along the river by the Bode Museum in the early evening...

...stopping only to watch the starlings perform a murmuration above the domes of Berlin.

 and admire the tango dancers by the bridge...

...and then as we crossed the bridge , the music floated out over the Berlin dusk.

There in the portico of the museum was the Kuba Stankiewiez Quartet.

What a setting and what sounds they made....a magic night!

It was my niece and her husband who organised our trip to hear the group, and I managed to take this pic of her as she crept up to the front to photograph them as they played. 

Jess is a professional photographer and Neil a football blogger!

We sat at the tables near the bridge with the dancers clicking their feet, and watched the stars come out.

It's taken me a while to get this together...trying to find where my pics are on the new "box".

But I'm getting there...as we say in the Snapes...

..."Little by little"..

or even

"Paulatim".

Poem for Open Link Night Week 33 at dVerse.

The Murmuration.

Did Steinbeck have the low-down

on starlings?

Someone did.

Are they held together

by the elastic string of time?

Their timing is certainly precise.

Even gulls

who get caught up

in that display

avoid black wings

that shimmer

in the late sun.


I posted this on the 1st. December last year but I'm putting it back up for dVerse this week.
It's Open Link Night Week 33.