North

Under the Bridge

                                       The stream

Runs softly yet drowns the Past,

The dark-lit stream has drowned the Future and the Past.

Edward Thomas

The Bridge 

I am in 'The North,' which means a handful of things...... Geographically it's up the hill, leaning toward where the lines of longitude converge.  Psychologically it's where the crowds in your head thin out and you begin to hear your own thoughts.  Historically it is where I was at home some time ago.  

But the waters have flooded under the bridge and washed most of that away.

And so, with my bro, we spend a sunny morning near Wakefield in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park [founded in 1977 by Sir Peter Murray CBE and since 2022 led by Clare Lilley, YSP is the largest sculpture park of its kind in Europe. It is the only place in Europe to see Barbara Hepworth’s The Family of Man in its entirety, alongside a significant collection of sculpture, including bronzes by Henry Moore, important pieces by Roger Hiorns, Studio Morison and Hemali Bhuta, and site-related works by Katrina Palmer, Andy Goldsworthy, Alfredo Jaar, David Nash, Sean Scully and James Turrell....]

And, by virtue of an overactive emotional imagination, I am back in Hannover, with the Nanas:

Niki de Saint Phalle: Buddha, 2000

And then, on the hill exposed to the wind,  I am back at Ely Cathedral, with my friends Simon and Connie, last summer, when we were all alive.... 

Sean Henry: Seated Figure 2016 

(3m x 1.6m x 1.9m Painted bronze)

And then again I am transported back to Hertfordshire, at Perry Green, Much Hadham, with Amanda, at Henry Moore Studios & Gardens (Seventy acres of Hertfordshire sky above seventy acres of studios, workshops and art at the artist’s former home and sculpture gardens).  Amanda loved to place her hands on those vast, smooth bronze shapes......

Henry Moore, Reclining Figure: Arch Leg (1969 - 70)

Though there is always someone photo-bombing.....

Henry Moore, Large Two Forms (1966 - 69)

And then there is this piece I photographed some time ago in London, at the Tate Modern, I think.  As with most sculptures I am innocent as to their significance.  But I like the colours of this one.  

Then what else?

Apparently, this iconic LOVE image is now recognised as one of the key images of 20th century art.....  The slanted 'O' and the square format was, in Indiana's view, the most dynamic way to use four letters.

{I can think of other dynamic ways to use four letters, but that may not be helpful.}  

Suffice it to say, perhaps, that I have always loved love...... [So what's new?  Ed]

Robert Indiana, Love (Red Blue Green) 1966 - 98

And so, like weasels and rabbits, I move on.  To Reeth, in Swaledale.  To meet up with a friend (by arrangement).  We haven't seen each other for the worst part of a half century, but it is as if time was immaterial, despite a little wear and tear of ageing (on my part at least), perhaps.  

Recognition doesn't enter into it, it is almost as though there was no past, that it has been drowned by the dark-lit stream.  The bridge has shadowed all those waters.

We walk and talk in the sunshine, by the sparkling river.  It is spring - the season of renewal - and for a moment the lambs aren't sure where to look.  

Then they scamper off to their maas while a curlew veers haphazardly over a disused barn, as confused as me:

Daffodils do their brief best to cheer the world, while the trees are just unfurling their sap-fused buds to the sky:

Then the magic fades to shadows on the hill, where the spoil from the old lead mines has become a part of the landscape:

The writing is on the road.  Don't rush.  Take the corner carefully.  Easy now:

And then my friend disappears again.  Another half century until the next time.  But I know nothing is forever, though memories may brim over and flood across the stones, in and out of the streams under the bridge.

Darkness falls on Reeth, and local lads enjoy their own company outside The Buck:

I drink the soft night air, the stars sprinkling my glass with light years of shattered diamonds. But the world seems inside out, or upside down:

And all that is left, for now, are the embers of a dying fire, the ashes of the past piling on the heartstones (sic):

But, I protest, it's all grate!

Single File Please!

And I wander back to my room, singing my favourite song to myself:

I've been down this road before

I remember every tree

Every single blade of grass

Holds a special place for me

And I remember every town

And every hotel room

And every song I ever sang

On a guitar out of tune

I remember everything

Things I can't forget

The way you turned and smiled on me

On the night that we first met

And I remember every night

Your ocean eyes of blue

How I miss you in the morning light

Like roses miss the dew

I've been down this road before

Alone as I can be

Careful not to let my past

Go sneaking up on me

Got no future in my happiness

Though, regrets are very few

Sometimes a little tenderness

Was the best that I could do

I remember everything

Things I can't forget

Swimming pools of butterflies

That slipped right through the net

And I remember every night

Your ocean eyes of blue

How I miss you in the morning light

Like roses miss the dew

How I miss you in the morning light

Like roses miss the dew

I Remember Everything

John Prine and Pat McLaughlin