Clarence's Starry Starry night.

Hi everyone, I hope all is well with you today.

I woke at 4.4am and looked out of the bedroom window to a wonderful clear sky, speckled with sparkling sta,the grass was sparkling and the temperature 1degC but I just had to go outside and stare up in wonder at the sky with the crunch of the first ground frost this autumn under my feets, and immediately fell into a (silent) rendition of Don McLean's homage to Vincent van Goch, Vincent, otherwise known as Starry Starry Night, a song I have always loved and words I have have long remembered since my teenage years, and not just an homage to The Starry Night, there are lots of links to other paintings; Sunflowers (flaming flowers that brightly blaze) for example.   My grandfather was a lover of Van Goch's work and one birthday gave him a book of some of VG's work, which I now have.  He was not open to listening to pop music of any kind and dismissed Don McLean's work as noisy and intrusive caterwauling, until he read the words, and like all true art, whether it is poetry, painting or music everything gelled and he understood.  To this day this has been one of my favourites (I hear you say yet another favourite) but there are so many beautiful poems how can you not have lots of favourites, who wrote the rule that you must only have one?  Not me. So today's blog is dedicated to my grandfather Clarence from his Princess.

It was sad also to hear of the passing of John Tavener, composer, probably most remembered for his choral works, especially the Lamb and Song for Athene, sung at Princess Diana's funeral.

On that note, thank you for reading once again, and may all be well with you wherever in the world you are.  Speak to you tomorrow.

Siwzy

The Starry Night  Vincent van Goch 1889  (original in MOMA)

"Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)" Don McLean

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills 
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night

You took your life, as lovers often do
But I could've told you Vincent
This world was never meant for
One as beautiful as you

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frame-less heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will