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or how Django Reinhardt, his left hand mutilated, brought the music to an end. Returning late from the Dockyard, Mr Spickernell left his bike Bumping and barking down the side wall. Steam from his tea cup Harmonised, a kind of music, And the snug fire clicked its needles softly as we tuned up. Notes hung on their stems in huddles -
"Pick them in bunches," he whispered As I peeled them with my plectrum One by one and, past the score, peered at the smoky knitting Collapsing up the chimney. Warm Enough in the music, later he'd roll up his sleeves, swing Improvised runs through a twelve bar
Riff. Or he'd play a prized record, Ignoring how it hissed at him, And follow on where it faded, his mad fingers running After the vanished tune. Then came The evening he played Django's Parfum. The needle's long Complaint grew soft and all was gauze
Through which the music spread, leaving No residue. Silent, Mr Spickernell touched every string on his guitar, gave them Tactile instructions not to stir. The record stopped. "My God!" he said, "two fingers and a thumb!" - Stared into the fire and shivered.
At that time of evening, light hung between the seven trees, conveying stillness and a softening and something by which to measure the days.
Occasionally, cats and birds were transfigured in its spreading but I stayed with my bookshelves and cupboards and turned on my angled lamp for reading.
And different altogether, it lifted words from the pages, leaving the other light shapes to gather that weren't words or defined by their edges.
Yet what they were was too far off and not open to eye or touch so I turned from them as from things unsafe or a beauty too dangerous to watch.
Now I'm older and take the air at dusk, find a sense that quickens with the insects and, mislaying my fear, it's the light among the trees that beckons.
Everything disintegrates In the heat except these shore crabs, Tossed like children's badges on the swept mud, And where there is shadow, it floats, A ragged shirt over the ribs Of silt. I stood on this path once, near mad
With cold, and wind would not let me Pass, flexing like a metal sheet And pushing me back to the road. Today It's dead crabs keep me company And there's no breeze at all to set The liquid horizon. And if I die
Today, where there is space round me And I don't fit, and in this place Which has no end, I would prefer my death To be with the crabs, carelessly Scattered, random as sea asters Or the flight of the redshank, maybe worth
Exactly what makes them or me Part of this. I'm too close to cool Water even to notice the heat sting Me and too far away to see The sails of old Halnaker Mill Still multiplying nothing with nothing.
At this time of year, between afternoon And dusk, sky, though stretched, is near enough to Tug on as if it were a kite. Below The breakwaters, a shining tide slid down Over rock pools leaving us silence like The echo of a silence. The sun spread Richly, its rituals starting to grow Behind the coastguard tower and the board Of the Old Pier. The river had the look
Of metal. At first I thought it was breeze - It sounded part of the place, just as clear And resonant as the scene round me. Or It might have been the wires. Then the banners Put me right, stuck into the sand along The beach, growing out of human huddles, Trying to stake to earth something of their Drifting music. Invisible cradles Were rocked on the women's arms and each song
Was like a pulled plant reaching for rain. Black Cockneys, first generation maybe, sang Of old Israel as if they had not long Been away, while on their banners stitchwork Sure as light had them from the crumbling streets Of South London. I left them singing. Their Sound was all they were, complete, containing All they could leave and all that I could share, Trying almost to touch those fading notes.
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