See buffalo herding
From every station
Trains can breathe now
Streets are heaving
Red white blue on
Coloured bunting
No one's leaving
Flags unfurling
Unicycle
Roadway clearing
Children hopping
Parents cheering
Collected fears
Have lost their meaning
A flame is fanning
A torch is nearing
ultra high-definition image ofthe transit of Venus
across the face of the sun from space
According to the Guardian UK online, it's "a rare astronomical event that happens when Venus travels across the face of the sun and appears as a small black dot on its surface". Transits happen in pairs, 8 years apart, followed by gaps of 121.5 and 105.5 years. It's therefore been a privilege to live through two of these, in June 2004 and this week, on Tuesday 5th June 2012. The next one is due in December 2117, so in case you can't stick around to see it, here (on the right) is one memorable image from Tuesday night.
The idea that our sister planet Venus should be circling the sun, should of course, remind us of the orbitting that our own planet is currently doing. As you read this, you are precariously balanced on a ball of rock that's apparently moving around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour. If you suffer from motion sickness, then please take a moment to recover...
We rotate into night after around 24 hours. We orbit the sun in one of our Earth years. In that time we move 940 million kilometres through our galaxy. To borrow a metaphor from Owl City, it seems to me that we're riding "a disco ball just hanging by a thread."
...Meanwhile, on planet Earth, on the same day that the transit of Venus was due to be seen, on some tiny islands called the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. It's only the second time a British monarch has reigned for sixty years. As I watched some grainy footage of Queen Victoria's 1897 Diamond Jubilee, I marvelled at the massive display of patriotism that accompanied that event. And, after some years of apparently losing popularity, it seems that affection for royalty has come back into vogue in 2012.
It's true that in life, sometimes things come full circle. The Diamond Jubilee Regatta on the River Thames was the largest of its kind for centuries, reminding us of a bygone era. The Diamond Jubilee concert combined some fresh faces with others who have not been seen for a while, returning them to our consciousness and reminding us that their music has accompanied the evolution of life in the UK over the past sixty years.
The 2004 transit of Venus from
the Flagler Beach Pier in Florida
Then, in the Diamond Jubilee Service of Thanksgiving from St Paul's Cathedral, London, the words of a timeless poem, Psalm 19, were revisited in song. Transmitted live across the islands that my feet are fixed to, the sentiment brought me back to the transit of Venus and the Earth's almost invisible rotation and orbit of the sun. "...The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge... In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun...The sun rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat."
In the eight years since we last witnessed a transit of the sun by Venus, all of us, like the planet itself, have been making our way through space at an astonishing speed. Yet, when things come full circle, it's good to stop, take a breath, and reflect awhile about where we're going next...
(This post was written for Theme Thursday 7th June, 2012 on the theme of "Full Circle".)
To let off steam; In an instant, all ashout: "You know what? I'm mean."
Then, Vengeance dribbling from his lips, With gallus, rehearsed, swaggering hips, And a single nod to his young team, He's off again, To live the dream.
Cautiously, Waiting at the edge, Backing off, Searching for the zone.
In a movement, In one moment, He is leaving fear On the sidelines, And Dipping his toe in, Splashing right under.
A boy in blue goggles, Hugged by a woggle, Lapping attention, As water pulls him down, Paddling and proud, Head up, catching eyes, Straining with all his tiny might.
The smallest in the class, Bustling across the surface, Sucked in the slipstream Of a cavalry charge Bringing him home.
Riding a red horse to shore, In the slow cantering spray of Enjoying himself.
An intent listener Concentrating As the chatter of children Splashes through your ears.
Pretty in pink At home near H20 You giggle in goggles When you notice me.
Diving right in You cut through chlorine Kicking in scissors Scything the surface A frog-legged torpedo Destination locked in Seconds until arrival A few breaths per breadth.
Then bobbing, like a buoy, You wait in synchronicity With the water.
Today you are A butterfly ballerina Spreading your wings Across the deep end.
And I am watching With pride A new swimming sensation.
When he arrived here, he was unexpected and uninvited. He understood nothing. And he was not unbroken.
Communication was a problem. Not just the dialect, but how to get to what really mattered. Gradually I got to know him. After several months, he began to recount his former way of life. I understood, at last, that the choice he had taken to come here, was no choice at all. He was merely trying to survive.
It has taken time to convince him that he is welcome here, so if, by chance, you meet Joseph, perhaps you too can remind him that he is not alone.
ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ
Gunfire rang out across the bone dry desert. The sun had just fallen off the edge of the world and Joseph Takana was worried about the increasing sound of the wind. Whistling through the open wasteland, it might be a sandstorm brewing.
Joseph had nothing to protect him. He gripped his blue American rucksack. Filled with all the earthly belongings that he now possessed, it would provide no cover from the swirling sand. Sand that could overpower his breathing and cause immense irritation to his eyes. Sand that was the least of his worries…
Fourteen hours earlier Joseph’s life had been tranquil. His small border farmstead was bathing in early morning sunlight. His flock of some two dozen sheep were crowded in the corner of their makeshift bamboo pen, near to the brick building which Joseph called home.
Joseph could just make out, from his bedroom window, the brilliant reflected glint of the Blue Nile shining as though a shimmering, mirrored ribbon had been stretched across the horizon. Looking back into the room, he glimpsed his beautiful wife Nadia, asleep on their wicker bed, and their son, Elias, his tiny arms clasped around her slender neck. Pulling the white linen sheet up over the boy’s tiny body, Joseph fastened his sandals and headed down the spiralling wooden staircase. He quickly passed the small living area that connected, via a makeshift patio, to the yard.
Since inheriting the farm, four years earlier, at the death of his father, Joseph had risen every day at five fifteen to perform the same half hour ritual.
The walk to the standing tap that served all the local farmsteads took him only minutes. First of all, Joseph would fetch water and return with a large pitcher-full that would provide for his family for that day. Joseph would then push an old tin bath on some disused wheels and wait as the grey, rusting, vessel slowly filled up. Gradually, enough water would trickle its way in. Soon, the early morning thirst of his flock would be quenched.
On this morning, having left the pitcher for his family in a shaded part of the downstairs living area, Joseph pushed the tin bath back towards the community’s water supply. Even direct sunlight failed to produce a hint of a reflection on the old bath, which had been passed on through three generations of the Takana family.
As the wheels trundled haphazardly across the red gravel path, Joseph’s was beginning to feel alive. He was truly thankful as he considered his family sleeping peacefully at home. Whistling cheerfully, he made his way up the final few yards, taking the slight incline in his considerable stride.
"Good morning. God’s blessing to you, Shepherd Joseph!" said Sidira, suddenly joining him on the path. Her sing-song tones seemed to mimic the warmth of the day. "God’s blessing to you, too Sidira. It’s such a fine day isn’t it?" said Joseph.
In Sidira’s presence, it was hard not to respond with a smile. A mother of two teenage boys, she had managed, with their help, and in spite of drought, to keep her small piece of land producing just enough food to keep them going. The death of her husband, a victim of the civil war, had left her a widow at the age of twenty-eight. Her devilish grin and a perfect array of bright white teeth, revealed the fact that somehow, she had managed to remain positive. Her reaction in the face of loss, had inspired many other widowed Ilyuan to keep hoping too.
Chatting all the way, they soon reached the standing tap. Joseph stood aside to allow Sidira to fill her large plastic bucket. The pedestrian flow of the water was, for Sidira, the perfect opportunity to chat to her neighbour. Her eyes gleamed as Joseph recounted a tale of Elias’s early attempts to walk. At first, his near refusal to let go of his firm grip on Nadia’s fingers. His uncertain footing. Being coaxed into a few tiny steps. The joy of collapsing into his father’s arms. Finally, the endless repetition of success as he continually launched himself, with the wobbly uncertainty of a newborn lamb, from the outstretched arms of one parent into the arms of the other.
"These are precious moments Joseph. Hold on to them forever," said Sidira, as the bucket wrestled her right arm slowly towards the ground. "It only seems like yesterday when my boys were that age. Now they just tower over me! I don’t know why they still do what I tell them! But, they are a real blessing! I could not do without them."
Joseph smiled when, as Sidira wound her way back down the gravel track towards her home, she sent a final message booming over her shoulder: "Thank you for your kindness! Take care of your beautiful family, Shepherd!"
Then, moving the bath into position, Joseph returned to his task. He turned the tap anti-clockwise and the dribble of water steadily increased until, ten minutes later, the bath was ready to be wheeled back towards the Takana farmstead...
It was the timing, rather than the arrival of the vehicle, that had caused the stabbing fear that rose within Joseph’s body. As he started to push the makeshift trolley, Joseph heard, somewhere in the distance, the unmistakable sound of an engine. Although cars passed sporadically on the country road nearby, it was usually too early in the morning for anyone to be using such a backwater route.
Joseph’s stride quickened slightly as he strained his six-foot frame upwards to catch a glimpse of the vehicle over the huge fence of hedgerows that hemmed in the gravel path on both sides. His heart hammering inside his body, he began to look down the pathway towards the entrance to Sidira’s home. Suddenly he heard the slamming of her door.
Seconds later, the peaceful air was shattered by the appalling crack of a machine gun, as silver bullet casings burst into the sky, accompanied by the squalid, unmistakable hollering of Ethiopian militia…
Cross border raids had happened rarely in recent times, but part of Ilyuan folklore was to pass on tales of raiders who arrived without warning. Some members of Joseph’s community had lost family members, taken into slavery or worse, by the brutal olive-skinned soldiers of doom. Joseph’s first reaction, flight, was based on these accounts.
He faced his fear and sprinted down the path towards home.
With his feet pounding the hard ground, and fear welling up inside him, Joseph thought of Elias-his birth had been traumatic and the tears of joy which the father had shed on his eventual arrival had been also tears of sheer relief. Relief too that his wife was still alive. Nadia. He ran faster and momentarily glimpsed a pair of withered eyes peering through the window, as he surged past Sidira’s cottage.
Joseph thrust his body on and on. His toes stabbed through his dusty sandals as he ran. Reaching the end of the hedgerow he was given the first glimpse of his future. To his horror, Joseph saw a dirty white Toyota pick-up truck with huge 4x4 wheels parked in the yard of his smallholding. On the back stood two gunmen, their belts of bullets worn around their vested bodies like sashes of honour.
Suddenly noticing Joseph in the distance, the smaller of the two men spat out instructions and the sound of gunfire ripped through the air. Joseph fell to the ground. His stiff body lay there, as if dead, but a second wave of gunfire forced him to turn his eyes furtively towards his home. Two more men swaggered from the farmhouse. With their red bandanas pulled down over their mouths, and their machine guns resting on their bare shoulders, they slid silently into the truck.
The engine fired up and, with another random round of violence against the sky, they turned their vehicle towards Joseph. His body tightened, with every muscle screaming at him to stand and fight, but he lay there, just above the ground, a man whose life had been ripped from him. When the pickup screeched past him, barely ten metres away, Joseph resembled nothing but a corpse.
Then, as a parting shot, the taller of the gunmen, perched imperiously on the back, suddenly fired a volley of bullets through Sidira’s front window, before the white Toyota sped off, leaving an eerie silence. It was six forty-three. They did not take the trouble to check that they had killed the widow and her two sons, but the massive spray of bullets into the tiny room had left the family with little chance of survival.
Joseph's body morphed into rock, but the pain in his chest was a constant reminder that there was still life in him. Even before he managed to twitch the left leg into motion and navigate the shattered frame onto feet of lead, he knew. He knew, and knowledge burned his insides like a forest fire, spreading quickly through every part of his tall, gaunt remains. There seemed no rush, but Joseph had to move, magnetized by the small brick building that had been his home since birth.
[Twenty-five years earlier his mother, set against travelling to the newly built hospital some 50 kilometres away, and without any reliable transportation method, had taken the only real option available and asked her neighbour to help deliver him.] Another stab of pain; this time in his right leg. Only a cut. Joseph felt the shame of relief and lumbered on, pleading inside to be wakened from his nightmare. As he approached, he saw a flow of muddy brown-red water trickling down the irrigation ditch adjacent to the side of the house.
Like a death row criminal, Joseph stumbled on towards his fate. The door had been left ajar and stepping inside, he gripped the handle as if it was his final connection to the life he used to know. The metal warmed him, having been in direct sunlight for almost an hour, but even in that moment, Joseph recognized that the sensation was only transitory. The mechanics of movement seemed alien to him as he negotiated the wooden floor towards the spiral staircase. Every creak of the boards reminded him of his grim task.
At the top, from the open doorway, Joseph received his sentence. Crimson seeping through linen. Tiny hands clamped around the neck. And the primitive look of horror that crushed Joseph to his knees. Disbelieving, life had been torn from them. Approaching the bed, his tears were instant and became merged with blood as Joseph clung to his family, until finally, he broke free and became silent, staring only at the palms of his shaking hands.
Then he heard the engine once again. The sickening taste in his throat and the bitter wrenching of his stomach caused him to awaken from his paralysis. The putrid smell mingled with the early morning heat and Joseph moved quickly to pull the blood-soaked covers over his loss, lingering only to kiss their heads.
Two stars had disappeared from his sky. A sky that was now crashing down on him. Punch-drunk, he grabbed for his backpack and thrust clothes randomly into it from a pile on the floor, as the unmistakable wrench of gears, tyres and throttle merged into his consciousness. Joseph dashed through the open doorway. The spiral staircase; the downstairs room; the patio; the yard. In an instant, he was past the little bamboo fence. He glanced at the slaughtered flock propped beside the wall and ran. The vehicle was coming closer and would soon appear past the hedgerows. Joseph headed in the opposite direction.
Soon, the lorry drew alongside him and passed onto the connecting dirt track leading towards its eventual destination of Kasala. It was carrying cattle, heavily packed and tightly caged in behind a dusty black rig. The driver had taken a wrong turn some way back. Joseph’s sprint faded to a jog. As the lorry passed on its way, it sent spirals of dust back into his face. Joseph fell once more to his knees.
Returning to the farm, his body took full control of his numb spirit, and he laid Nadia and Elias to rest as best as he could, side by side in a makeshift grave near the irrigation ditch. He waited just long enough to mark the spot with a spindly cross, made of two fallen branches, fused with twine. And then, suddenly and pragmatically, Joseph Takana simply left his old life and the Ilyuan way of existence behind forever.
Forlorn silence was his companion as he walked to the valley that night. A black hole in his mind was swirling around pictures of Nadia and Elias with every step. Putting one foot in front of the other as best as he could remember, he slowly switched his thoughts to survival. Moving along tracks that he knew well, Joseph covered twenty kilometres by the time night swiftly moved in to mimic and mock his tattered heart.
And as gunfire, the persistent ticking of the clock of war started once more in the distance, he knew that this night would not be a restful one.
Finally, making out a small, barren tree-trunk at the far side of the valley, Joseph shifted wearily on and collapsed against it. His body grasped the rucksack tightly in the vicious wind. There were many miles ahead. He closed his eyes and hoped to dream that he was dead.
Donal Park left his black Astra on the double yellow line and hoped for the best. He crossed the road and made his way into the post office. Waiting in the queue, his stupid conscience prodded him over and over again. Why had he not paid the seventy pence for the car-park? It would have been much easier.
Five minutes later, he handed his Qualifications Authority card over. The guy in the grey shirt lumbered off muttering "Not another one" just loud enough to add to Donal's anxiety. What was he supposed to say? Really sorry about asking you to do your job, which is clearly more difficult than anyone else's...
Why did they always spend an eternity at the back of the sorting office? Donal noticed that his hands had started to sweat as he popped his head out of the glass door to check for traffic wardens. He'd seen them in action, working their way up the street: two grim reapers looking for their next victim. Every year, when Donal came to pick up the scripts, he believed that this would be the one where they'd slap a fine on his windscreen.
When he turned back to the window, there the guy was, with his extra workload for the next few weeks. Three large grey plastic packages. Each containing at least 100 folio papers to mark for the exam board. Some were creative; some discursive. It made no difference to Donal. Quality was getting thin on the ground these days.
As he took the packages and turned to leave, he pictured himself following the same old ritual. Opening the packages to find out when to send them back by. Then the calculation-how many would he need to mark each night to get them done in time? Then the main calculation. The one he really cared about. He'd maybe clear about two hundred and fifty quid for the lot. Not much to write home about, but it'd give him a bit on the side, for the holidays.
Quickly sliding back into the car, Donal piled the papers onto the front passenger seat on top of a couple of empty crisp packets. As he slipped the car into first, he saw two black caps looming in his rear-view mirror. He grinned and joined the passing traffic with a quick boost on the accelerator.
When he got home, Donal usually took a bit of time to recover from his day. It was always mental torture trying to keep teenagers focused on their work. All they wanted to do was check who was on facebook, or cyberbully someone in another class.
He poured himself a drink from the cabinet and sat down, amongst the debris of his life. He always chose the old rocking chair. From here he could stare at the window ledge. And the only photo he still owned of Susie. Aged ten, taken by the seaside. Her blonde hair cartwheeling in the breeze, like she'd just put her hand on a Van de Graaf generator. One of the last days they'd spent together. Her smile melted him, again, just as it did here every day. Even her mother, waving madly in the background, couldn't spoil this moment.
A microwave meal later, Donal dug his fingers through the plastic and pulled. Stretching and ripping the packages was maybe the best part of this whole loathsome job. Out, as usual, tumbled a dozen or more brown packages and Donal's mind got to work. Two packets, or around twenty essays, per night should do it. Three whole weeks of working day and night. Best to get the damn thing started right away.
And so Donal began to pile through another distinctly average set of essays.
Until, three nights later, he blindly opened the package that relit his life.
The school's name didn't ring any bells. Cullness Grammar, Inverness. Another in the long, mediocre line. But when he got to the fourth script in the package, the handwriting seemed to reach out of the page to grab him.
Name: Susannah Park. Title: Arguments for and against capital punishment.
Donal knew straight away it was Susie's.
Six years had passed since his wife had taken her away in the night. He could still picture the note on the mantelpiece: "It's over. Never come looking. We neverwant to see you." The night before he'd taken Susie out to Cineworld in Glasgow. She'd laughed hysterically when he'd spilled some Ben and Jerry's on his jacket. Their last laugh together. It had lasted the longest in his mind. His princess had disappeared without a trace and Donal had sunk purposefully away from hope.
He read the essay word by word. He read it a second and a third time. It did not even approach average...
He knew what he had to do. Pulling out his lap-top, he clicked a word document open and chose an identical typescript.
Name: Susannah Park. Title: Is capital punishment a legitimate form of retribution for a democratic society to choose in the twenty-first century?
An hour later, the document buzzed out of Donal's HP deskjet. He stapled the sheets together tenderly and replaced the essay in the brown envelope, awarding 23 marks out of 25 next to Susie's name in the box at the front. It seemed to Donal, like the least that he could do to make up for what had been lost...
When Susannah Park moved into her student accomodation at Glasgow University six months later, her arrival came on the back of an unexpected A pass in her English exam.
She was, she told her friends, going back to live in her home town...
Old Neily Whyte's rough, indented, sea-weathered hand pulls young Neil aboard and soon the pier at Kames begins to disappear. The green shore waves the puffer boat goodbye as it dissolves into the day. Soon the engine's constant chug through the choppy amethyst water is a relentless backbeat to the freestyle squawk of the gulls, zipping magnetically above their heads.
Young Neil's senses are spraying in the bubbling, beautiful Kyles of Bute. Barely noticing his grandpa and the sailors passing a bottle of Arthur Bell's finest. Nor their merriment and mirth growing arms and legs. From her window, Margaret's heart lurches as she spots the puffer weaving haphazardly though the Narrows. She is unaware that, with a "Grab the wheel, boy" her grandson, aged twelve, has just been made skipper.
What does Neil do with some drunken sailors early in the morning? Steady as she goes, saving the day, bit by bit, he navigates them home...
Back ashore the story washes around the Sound. Next day, his dad Alex, although vexed at his own dad, proudly recounts events at the Millhouse Powderworks...
Close on one century later, still proud of Neil, I pass this folklore through cyberspace to you...
Maybe the fact that I've been finding myself working out ways to eat five portions of fruit and veg by lunchtime over the past few weeks should have alerted me.
If not that, then heading to Morrisons in search of avocadoes and oats, having read a chapter of Bear Grylls' book, certainly should have done the trick.
Oh and did I mention that I've taken up golf? Being able to purchase a second hand set of clubs this week has whetted my appetite in a different way- for getting out onto the course.
All of this adds up to one simple fact: I must be getting older. It happens, you know. And as I turned 39 this week, I had a sense that I was deliberately heading out on a pilgrimage: the Mecca of a slightly healthier lifestyle and who knows what else...
Going into Oxfam on Saturday and picking up a driver, a putter and eight irons for the princely sum of £19.90 also set me thinking about health. I can't help but wonder whose clubs I have inherited and why?
But, on a brighter note, approaching forty has also forced me to look back. And in doing so, I've decided to embark upon a spring clean of something that I have held dear for many years.
Writing music has been in my blood since I was a youngster. I vividly recall writing a tribute to our pet cat Tinker at the age of about twelve. Verse one went something like this: "One day Tinker the cat was walking along the road. Then came a big bad witch and turned him into a toad..." Hardly Paul Simon I know. From then until now, I've penned a wheelbarrow full of lyrics (many of which should have been wheeled to the rubbish dump, I'm willing to admit) in the hope that some memorable melodies might turn up. Not many have, but I'm still trying. The perfect song is, for me, like that elusive, tantalising hole-in-one that I'm just waiting to ace...
I've attempted, several times, to quit writing songs, but I honestly can't. I sing in the shower, I sing to my pupils at school (ask them about "The Critical Essay" song), I sing at church and I make up songs in my attic. I enjoy singing to my son and we often concoct one-time fun songs that will be instantly forgotten. The ones that stick become ritualistic, like the song for cleaning teeth each night: "Clean your teeth, Make them clean, make them fit to be seen by the Queen..."
Now don't get me wrong. I know these songs are not going to be remembered by many in years to come. However, they've become part of a collected set of memories and I often use them to recall specific occasions in that 39 years gone by. There's "Smile," the song I wrote for the girlfriend who was to become my wife. There's "West End Walk," the song that I wrote to express the feelings I had during a bout of depression, several years back. They've become little windows that I can look through to remind me of my past. They form part of who I am.
Which brings me to "Left Discarded". It's a collection I've started putting together of some of the music that I've managed to record, somewhere, somehow over the years. The recording equipment I have is hardly state-of-the-art, so as you can imagine, these are fairly rough and ready, but I simply wanted to have them permanently on record. Maybe, the act of doing so will let me move onto something different.
I'll be adding to the collection over the coming weeks but for now, the link below will take you to what has been "Left Discarded." If you get a chance, have a listen and if you like any of what you hear, please download a track or two for free: http://sciencekings.bandcamp.com/
Outside the club-house she persists with her motley band of brothers, until a striding, capped American in plus-fours chooses her. With a simple "Bessie's the best at searching rough", he marches on like he's the next Walter Hagen, cigarette trickling from his mouth. Elizabeth manouevres the bag. Soon clubs clink rhythmically across her back.
The only girl on the course, she proves him correct, once, at the fourteenth, unearthing treasure from gorse and heather.
Finally, he tips a full shilling for her troubles...
Chuckling, seventy years on, Elizabeth confesses to several "lost" golf balls, stored strategically in her knickers...
