I tried to do a gig sketch, but the low light confounded me: so frustrating at first, because we were sitting in the front row. But for the rest of that excellent performance I quickly settled on jotting thoughts as they came, since slept on and now distilled…
Keep scrolling down for the drawing, such as it is, and this morning’s manuscript.
25th February 2023
Secret in the valley there,
Where foots that climb to the high moor weather-blasted workshops
Of our sky-engineer ancients,
A town-shy place whose old and honourable industry,
The alchemy of hop and grain,
Is ever fresh-crafting rhymes of fragrance,
Capturing new intrigues for the tongue
In bottles and casks.
In that modest wood-warmed wellspring of brews various, tonight,
Staves of a different sort, but complimentary of every ale:
A Fiddle Man, but none ordinary,
Come to Gwaun from Gloucestershire across ever-respected Hafren
To charm with bow-strokes sound beyonding music
From the beer-bright grain of his instruments:
Gliding and hopping over such finger-obedient strings,
So carefully tuned,
With surely as much wand-work as anything other;
While all the while, from his dancelusting feet,
Swarbrick beats fermenting rhythm in the maltmellow air.
Morrises he brought us, from wold and down and riverside,
Each with its own flavours: beech brow, lark-grass, dark eely mystery.
Land workers’ jigs, jigs for sailors maybe ashore,
Minuets for the more refined of old –
Whose bones, had they heard yesterday,
Would have remembered the when of every turn and
That crucial silent signal moment of eye-fixing curtsey,
Strong enough to change a life forever.
So thank you, Master, for your busy hours of reminiscent play,
Old tunes made once more fresh as when first thought of;
And, especially, for your inspiring of that hero
Who lost his breath in Flanders past a century and more –
And yet whose hands, with yours,
Still skill us melodies.
© Christopher Jessop 2023
