The Darkest of Nights
February has been a month of storms both meteorological and figurative that have left many of us feeling battered and anxious. Such storms leave their marks upon the landscape and familiar terrains can become strange, alien, and threatening. The cataclysmic events of the last few days are difficult to process and have catapulted us into what feels lik a much darker and more fearful world. How do we respond to it all and how do we navigate our way through times of intense darkness and confusion? We look to the misplaced wigeon to help us find some direction.
Journal entry:
“24th February, Thursday.
"An old crescent moon hangs in a sky
Swept clean by a week of winds.
On my car radio
News of a more brutal storm to the east.
Darkness falls
With the rising sun."
Episode Information:
In this episode I read the following poems (see episode chapters for time locations):
Tom Hennen ‘When Night Nears’ from his collection Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and new poems(2013) published by Copper Canyon Press.
Wendell Berry ‘To Know the Dark’ from his volume The Peace of Wild Things and Other Poems (2018), published by Penguin Books.
I also read an extract from his book The World-Ending Fire: The essential Wendell Berry (2018) also published by Penguin books.
General Details
In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.
Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River Weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence.
Piano and keyboard interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.
All other audio recorded on site.
Contact
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