Night

Gardens never (fully) sleep

So I was told a good couple of years down the line.
Lines – Meridians, Longitudes – the very work of clockmakers, poets, dreamers and mathematicians! Lines, lifelines, as if our love of the world and music was bound to more than words, chords, and chorus – a poetics that shouts across the universe and finds its roots deep inside Earth, where we, creators of one kind, weave threads of life just like cobwebs, on which spiders record lifetimes… 

Today, one of us three, decided to play in the garden by dressing “Night” with grace.  

Garden2Garden‘s Pianist & female lead vocal, Lissa-Kathe,  adorned our shared creative space with this video, which, I hope, will reach out to you. As for the vast majority of Garden2Garden‘s world, “Night” was born off a poem I wrote and shared with my two fellow “gardeners back in 2007. In turn, David and Lissa adopted it as “untouched” lyrics for the purpose of the song.”Night” is very close to my heart, as well as to Lissa’s. However, Lissa’s choice of cinematography – The Secret of Moonacre – fits the song just like a velvet glove.

For more details on Lissa’s work as a solo artist, please click on the following link:

Lissa-Kathe

Our shared project, Garden2Garden, can also be found at: Garden2Garden

All songs are available in iTunes as digital tracks, as well as on CD Baby should you wish to acquire a “physical” copy of Airborne, Garden2Garden’s debut album.

Our garden is nurtured. May the cosmos shine within it!

night

 It has returned, stars now again visible – my angels’ eyes.
Last night, I marvelled again at the Perseids… The whole of the sky unveiled itself to my childlike eyes. I stood on the top step of my kitchen back door wrapped in my Shetland blanket.


Last year, I wrote a piece out of such experience, The Whole of the Sky.

One last fag for a meteor.

Tonight I stand at my backdoor right before you,
asymmetric to Moon & Mars,
allegoric to northern night, as I’m waiting for flying rocks –
dust, tears, debris from a martyr since canonised
men don’t celebrate any more…

I’m watching the whole of the sky

late summer lace torn by the sigh of a demon
whose eye defies our depth of space…
and count each flash, elusive spark
and imagine God lights cigars with a more powerful lighter –

I guess he’s running out of fuel.

Maniac’s fingers might trash the flint;
my Milky Way gone up in smoke as he burns wishes among stars…
He might feel luckier with a match,
blow a halo around the sun;

and until I finish my fag,
 

I shall keep still on my top step, look up to you with shameless eyes
and draw a pen from my pocket to link each dot.

© Nat Hall 2009

I stopped smoking since then.

Night, 

moment encapsulated in verse, then turned into song by Garden2Garden


Dusk is a Dame,
dressed to attract like a magnet,
metallic blue or just jet black,
my loneliness & my angels.
This sky’s in rags,
torn between flares around pale stars –
too weak to love,
cries to the Moon;
sister darkness hides all his scars.
She’s cold & damp,
Indigo blue;
waltzes with dreams –
drinks from the clouds…
Night,
like sunflowers in a bouquet;
globular gold,
dark at its heart;
a thousand eyes look down on me
as if to say
“you’re not alone”.
A capella,
night is when you return to me;
your love and smile, all but a ghost –
song without words,
I need to feel, just not to see.
Blissful moments
slide before dawn,
they feel so real.    

© Nat Hall 2005

…All is quiet in Arcania.

April, this Snow fool…

 No air sock, no wind vane…

Just on course.

Lissa’s four sleeps away from leaping over the planet once more – from southern to northern garden…

Soon she reunites with Trinity, Edinburgh. Familiar façades and pavements. By some twist of fate, David remixed Bravery this morning – giving the track new wings thanks  to some technological add-on… Don’t ask me which, I dunna ken! I’m the Poet, not the arranger/techno-wizard!

And there, somewhere from the ether,

My favourite living Scottish poet, Mr Edwin Morgan, celebrated his 90th birthday today. He, fountain of inspiration and traveller from out of space! I love the way he takes the reader for some ride… That visionary rendez-vous.

Happy Birthday/Joyeux anniversaire, Mr Morgan 🙂

Mr Morgan’s appearance in the Scotsman 28 April 2010 

Serendipity.

I cast runes every time i find myself in the present. Keeps heart on track. 

From life’s least enigmatic trivialities to the very source of the cosmos, my favourite one remains Gebo, the gift. from the runemaker

Now April is waning away, I shall ask for warmth and mercy. Windows of light reach for our earth and create mist around our homes. Whilst that volcanic plume left us alone for a moment, we feel at last the tenderness of nordic sun. So I shall keep my fingers crossed and remember to bow to the magic of the island, my chosen archipelago.

And ask of you to let Lissa land to the realm of Arthur’s Seat.

I’ll wave at you from each classroom until you tell me you’ve arrived.

 

Unfinished Definition of… The Wind

So elusive and yet so bold.

Mode of transport to the dreamer,

            seasonal sigh or kiss of death –

it never fails to deliver messages to those who listen.

It tears off storms off TV masts,

            forces clean rain to come undone;

with feathered wings on each grass blade,

Aeolus knows it too well –

he Caesar in our northern sky,

who brings his legions to hilltops.

Now hear me out:

I spend my dreams flying with you –

sleep on the wing like alpine swifts but never fail to recognise

that I would be lost without you,

out of my dream,  at each sunrise.

© Nat Hall 2010

 …Who said the garden fell asleep?