Thirty-six hours in the capital were enough to have me reaching for the Blake. Join me for a while in ‘London‘.
The trudge of the poem’s tetrameters drummed in my head as I schlepped up and down stairs, squashed into tubes, and swayed on clanking escalators with that ghastly tube “wind” blowing in my face (the very opposite of fresh air, yet still somehow a relief from the grimy, sweaty heat). I haggised my way around Soho,* half on the pavement half on the kerb so that the Very Important People coming the other way didn’t have to break their stride. Much as I delighted in the Van Gogh exhibition, I still left London feeling weak with gratitude that I don’t have to live there.
That nothing about Blake’s poem felt inapt for today left me feeling worse about humanity/society/politics/The World, but better than ever about this grimly powerful poem. I don’t feel articulate enough to say anything more than that today, I’m afraid. I’ll just go and read some Larkin to cheer me up…
*For those not of Scottish descent, haggis are known to have two longer and two shorter legs, to make going round hills easier. Also good for pavements, y’see.
