Songs About Books

 

A cut-up of various diary entries, in this case, April 28ths. It also references a passage from W.G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn, where he mentions sunken willows. 

"Through Brundall, Buckenham and Cantley, where, at the end of a straight roadway, a sugar-beet refinery with a belching smokestack sits in a green field like a steamer at a wharf, the line follows the River Yare, till at Reedham it crosses the water and, in a wide curve, enters the vast flatland that stretches southeast down to the sea. Save for the odd solitary cottage there is nothing to be seen but the grass and the rippling reeds, one or two sunken willows, and some ruined conical brick buildings, like relics of an extinct civilization." 

"It was on a grey, overcast day in August 1992 that I traveled down to the coast in one of the old diesel trains, grimed with oil and soot up to the windows, which ran from Norwich to Lowestoft at that time. The few passengers that there were sat in the half-light on the threadbare seats, all of them facing the engine and as far away from each other as they could be, and so silent, that not a word might have passed their lips in the whole of their lives. Most of the time the carriage, pitching about unsteadily on, the track, was merely coasting along, since there is an almost unbroken gentle decline towards the sea; at intervals, though, when the gears engaged with a jolt that rocked the entire framework, the grinding of cogwheels could be heard for a while, till, with a more even pounding, the onward roll resumed, past the back gardens, allotments, rubbish dumps and factory yards to the east of the city and out into the marshes beyond. 

*** 

Nothing to be seen
But the grass and the reeds
Little houses once held life
Meeting daily needs

Dreams may serve as windows
Beams of light through the seams
When the wind is blowing
A little glimpse of the sea

Finding all the spaces
Between never and the night
Looking out the windows
Prevents the loss of sight

Through Brundall on to Cantley
Smoking on the billow [Smoke outside the window]
They started singing chanteys
Under sunken willows

An old diesel train
The grinding of the cogs
East of the city
Into the marshes beyond 

---