Some visceral/visual mementos of the ex-capital of England (sunny Winchester):

Saturday morning – large splashes of dried vomit, like bomb blasts on the pavement, or some deliberate (?) mirror of the big bang scattering debris throughout;

Piles of freshly fallen apples, windfall, in the garden at Lyndon Road – small vivid green pyramids – others become forming the sweet brown rot that the birds love –

The crescent and bell-shaped red flowers blooming on the foliage outside my bedroom window, catching the early sun coming in from over the recently harvested fields –

The Polish lady with her high, perfect accent sat each morning in the coffee shop reading her paper, chatting amiably with other regulars –

My early vision of the stars, formative learning of them, happening – intrigued, awakenings – terms like planisphere, corona –

Then, perhaps through the long end of a telescope (?) I see the word ‘exile’ once again. What is that about? Am I ‘away’ from home? Yes, perhaps away from two homes even – the Lakes where the woman I love is, and Italy – artists in exile can be interesting: Carravaggio, Brecht – how did their situation reveal itself as an inspiration or influence? Allowing the critical eye to appear. The observer status, the outsider?

The world now is smaller – yet even so one can still feel akin to it rather than placed within.

The bent and buckled reflection of a blind man with his white stick walking down the High Street, along a cobbled alleyway, but shining back in refracted light via the pane of glass I spot him in.

Grounding in reality.

But with exile a certain freedom comes, an absolution from some responsibilities, fewer loyalties – an awareness of dubious patriotism, nationalism, or organization of any kind – on the flip side there is the curse of rootlessness, internal unrest, that persistent sense of motion, the call of the horizon – maybe it could be called something like ‘the pilgrimage complex’ –

Recall – the Martins gathering over Winchester Cathedral night before last; hundreds collecting before their migration, a cloud of activity. Golden backlight of sundown. The birds seem to be attempting to fly through the ancient mortar of the building itself, as if they’d be bale to pass directly through it to their destination -