1. |
February Song
03:29
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On Imbolc - the 1st February 2021 - the sun was warm, and it seems the Cailleach was out gathering wood, plenty, for the long cold days that lay ahead to May and Beltane.
The sun through the trees, warming the ground,
She’s gathering wood into her arms,
And as she bends down she finds the warmth
On her back feels good, old friend long gone…
As deer roam, no wolf to fear
These things that she once held tightly
Slip through her fingers
Fall from her hands.
Storm gathering now, cold wind and rain.
Earth runs down the lane into the town
The sandbags piled up again
We wade through floods we have conjured,
Carelessly making,
Fall from our hands.
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2. |
Bridge
05:05
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3. |
not out of the woods
08:47
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4. |
And the birds will sing
05:28
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And the birds will sing
When you walk down the lane
Where I am waiting
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5. |
The Lark in the Morning
02:52
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Oh the lark in the morning
She rises from her nest
And she flies above the meadow
With the dew upon her breast
And like a pretty ploughboy
She’ll whistle and sing
And at night she will return to her own nest again.
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6. |
Empress of April
05:47
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Based on the story fragment “The Morning of the Empress” by Walter Benjamin. Written between 1906-12 and unpublished in his lifetime. Included in the collection The Storyteller, Verso 2016
The empress of April
Beautiful and ailing
Returned each evening
To the same sacred question
It kept her from sleeping
And on her morning walks
She asked the question
Of the orchids and cowslips
Until one evening in spring she constructed
A scale out of tin bowls, tin bowls and yarn
To examine the weight of the world
And this was her question.
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7. |
through the round window
09:16
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8. |
Caravan
04:20
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My labours done and homeward bound
I took my way across the fields
A grassy bank of sun I found
And to temptation I did yield
In that sun honey dappled pasture
My limbs drew strength, I rested well
Upon me came a sense of rapture
As the evening shadows fell
Between the star white wild garlic
And the hue of bluebell flower
I caught a spark of ancient magic
Felt the heart beat, felt the power
That flows through every shoot and sprouting
Rushes down the waterfall
Gives beauty to the moor and mountain
Lingers in the curlew’s call.
(Within that secret sacred second
Where pain and joy with love combine
All things met, all things were reckoned
Inconsequential was the time.)
But with the breeze time then intruded
As indeed the fate of man
The evening star to night alluded
I stepped into my caravan
I stepped into my caravan.
Sung here from memory ... and sorry to say I missed a verse.
When we played with Heed the Thunder we used to accompany Mark quite regularly - and play this lovely original Herefordshire folksong. The verse I forgot is the verse where I didn't sing a harmony.
You can have a listen to Mark singing Caravan here: https://heedthethunder.bandcamp.com/track/caravan
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Alula Down Hereford, UK
mark waters & kate gathercole
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