Song for today

I left the artist hard at work and firmly pulled the door behind me and climbed the cold steps into the light and made my way across the open expanse of common land between me and the station; I was listening to some music on my phone and the words were fighting with the wind for my attention. I braced myself: the woman twenty or so meters in front looked like a mountaineer, so strong was the wind gusting towards us. Just then, a song by the name of 'Villanelle For Our Time' came on, sung by Leonard Cohen, a man who, like Bergman, is wittier than people credit, though on this occasion deadly serious.
From bitter searching of the heart,

Quickened with passion and with pain

We rise to play a greater part.

This is the faith from which we start...

The clouds were moving fast and when I wasn't thinking about the words I was thinking about the time between now and when the gallerist gets back. It is all so ambiguous. Really there is no way of knowing what she has to say. Hope flatters. Still, I noticed the gap in the clouds and the sun slanting through, stroking and clearing the shadows from the grass where during one former conflict there were allotments.

Men shall know commonwealth again

From bitter searching of the heart.

We loved the easy and the smart,

But now, with keener hand and brain...

There is something unusually reflective about song, I was musing, and something entirely non-reflective about the way people go about their business in the capital. Ah, the sun was now reflected on the small pond, blindingly so, and I waited for a car to pass before safely crossing the road.
We rise to play a greater part.

The lesser loyalties depart,

And neither race nor creed remain

From bitter searching of the heart...

I was invited with the artist to an exhibition this evening. We couldn't go. I don't think we wished to, either. It was at a gallery who kept the artist waiting for months to make a visit that they promised to make and the artist never asked for. They never did make it in the end.
Not steering by the venal chart

That tricked the mass for private gain,

We rise to play a greater part.

Reshaping narrow law and art

Whose symbols are the millions slain,

From bitter searching of the heart

We rise to play a greater part...

But first I must get to the station and ride into the centre of the capital, crossing my fingers for the artist and us all. Not heavy of heart but gleaming, like the sun now encompassing all of the city.