Harry's Place Arts

The last few days have seen the death of significant figures:- Conor Cruise O’Brien, Bernard Crick,  Davy Graham and Adrian Mitchell.

They all made their mark.  They left something they created behind, which is why they are mourned by people who never met them.

Here’s an extract from a poem about the necessity of creation in the face of nihilism. 

So, Fanfare for the Makers: who compose
A book of words or deeds who runs may write
As many do who run, as a family grows

At times like sunflowers turning towards the light,
As sometimes in the blackout and the raids
One joke composed an island in the night,

As sometimes one man’s kindliness pervades
A room or house or village, as sometimes
Merely to tighten screws or sharpen blades

Can catch a meaning, as to hear the chimes
At midnight means to share them as one man
In old age plants an avenue of limes

And before they bloom can smell them, before they span
The road can walk beneath the perfected arch,
The merest greenprint when the lives began

Of those who walk there with him, as in default
Of coffee men grind acorns, as in despite
Of all assaults conscripts counterassault,

As mothers sit up late night after night
Moulding a life, as miners day by day
Descend blind shafts, as a boy may flaunt his kite

In an empty nonchalant sky, as anglers play
Their fish, as workers work and can take pride
In spending sweat before they draw their pay,

As horsemen fashion hoses while they ride,
As climbers climb a peak because it is there,
As life can be confirmed even in suicide:

To make is such.  Let us make.  And set the weather fair.

From Autumn Sequel by Louis MacNeice