online:24 September 2008 modified: 24 September 2008 19 September 2008 listening
by night, by day, and on the page
...long slow music of a single meandering note of variable pitch and with some other slow sounds in the background... late night on Radio 3... is it never going to stop... can it possibly be by Morton Feldman... no, to me it sounds as if derived or copied from his form but without his spaciousness of spirit... and now it is resolving into a single quiet note of higher pitch... and it ENDS!...
...in daylight and on the Heath i listen to the few sounds i can hear at the tumulus... there are no sounds from the people seen walking or sitting or lying on the yellowing grass... or from two hawks seen circling high above me... but i can hear some not very loud jet engine sound from aircraft that i cannot see in the almost cloudless sky... a dog is barking far away... and now i hear the distant siren of an emergency vehicle...
...i take a deep breath and can hear the sound of air moving through my nose... to me it is as loud as these other noises... (its source being so close to my ears!)...
...and now i recall Now: four people playing today (at the Foundry radio where i read the entries of the 3rd and the 13th of September)... oh how i liked it, their so lively playing and singing with electric guitars and a cello and a variety of rattles and swooping sounds against a programmed computer beat plus the striking of floor, furniture, bottles, as everything in sight became a percussion instrument as the music seemed to proceed unpredictably and swiftly with joy and vitality... i often wish music would stop but this is so unpredictable i could listen forever...
...and now i watch the silent performance initially of four (human) legs pointing up to the sky, and then of two bodies, as one pair (belonging to a woman wearing a red jacket) took photographs of the other (a man wearing a pale yellow one)...
...now (to low whistles from its owner) a fluffy little Pekinese walks close to me making slight sounds of breathing...
...and suddenly i notice a dead tree in the meadow... its twisted and whitened branches so still and so different from the life all around it... though subject i suppose to slower changes and perhaps even emitting sounds of its decomposition?...
...now a squirrel comes near and sits up as if to listen to sounds i cannot hear but i do hear the feet of a man running on the grass though he is about 50 metres away...
a line of silence
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