Friday 8 February 2019
The Bard
The Bard
Do you remember that character from the Asterix and Obelix
holding an instrument that would always get bound up in rope and tied to a
tree? That was a bard.
I don’t know how Wikipedia would define them, but these
creatures still exist among us, even today in this busy, internet, gadget ,
paradoxical bio, vegan, animal loving– never go out of fashion religious
fanatic people killing- space race world.
A bard walked in to my
life. In to my field. On to my land, in the middle of the grand working on the land day. I
recognised him instantly. Not because he had a black hat and a black guitar
case – the instrument and the money collecting hat being the two quintessential
essential belongings of a bard, a sort
of a functional uniform. But because I had heard him play the night
before. He was young and fresh and happy as an apple. Playing some unusual for
a street busker -up beat -music, and was really content, as if all his friends
where there just around the corner.
I passed him three times, each time was delighted by his
appartion,and just as he had packed up for the night I decided to drop some
money into his hat- which he refused. He thought I was dropping it out of pity,
as he no longer was playing. Having I explained that I had heard him earlier
and considered him good- satisfied him enough to allow my to pay for his
services and drop something into the
hat. Afterwards I sort of pushed
on, clumsily out of the public space, into the night, and away, slightly disappointed
about not getting to know the busker.
The next day , with the noon sun high and hot, with the
mountains as a background, he waded trough the tall summer grass into my
presence.
I knew it would be
you, I said. I had just received a phone call out of the blue and from abroad, introducing
the arrival or some friend who would look for me there miles away from the city. And he , the bard from
last night, had trekked with bus and on foot to come find, me.
It was spring / summer, that solstice moment when just the scents
of nature make one drunk. He had that sun bleached thing, going on, like
surfers do, long hair gone blonde form the sun, tanned skin, rosy cheeks and
blue eyes. For instants I hated him. He was pretty much all a girl could want
on a summers day in the nature. But he came into my field, on a grand working
action day and just lied down like a lion in the shade, to purrr his days away.
Did not even play music. What the kind of a guest was that? He helped a while,
than criticised my disturbing the nature- which was by far prettier in all its
meters of wild grasses and flowers ,that homed the awful snakesthat scared me. But of course
he liked the snakes.
Hmmm. To jump to the end. Bards like faries and elfes do
exsist.
They are not registered in the books of births and deaths and
because they float outside of what civilisation deems acceptable. They buzz on
the edges of civilisation, in between cities, feed on the money they earn busking,
live the life in between people may dream and wonder about but never have the courage
or recklessness to live. He plays and sings and makes music about this life in
the absolute freedom the un-belonging ness ,on having the stars as a roof, the
coat as a house, the random friendships along the endless road. He revitalises and inspires the souls of the people who for
an instant stop, listen, and maybe put something in the hat. Or hungry to live
the adventures of the bard, adopt him, grab him for a while to wash him, feed
him, suck him dry of this freshness, of his philosophical thoughts arisen from
the direct life in nature, anchor him with all the things he is running form,
hoovers, set hours for meals, neighbours, the rubbish one has to deal with
every day in the city, the human life, which he is not fit for ,which he does
not cope in, and than he stumbles out.
On to the road . safe, walking the eternal change. Safe with
the short lived, instantaneous friendships, instant, and more importantly un-permanent.
He is thrilled by every meal he eats, the fish caught and baked on a rock by
the fire, because no meal is guaranteed. Not even salt is guaranteed. Each
detail becomes a miracle. A god given blessing. Each thing which prolongs life,
the journey is a wander, and all those comforts we live and do not even notice
,like a roof , like a glass found near a river , are a blessing. There are no
plans. The plans are to keep moving somewhere. To eat. To play guitar. To talk
to someone. To sleep. To be grateful for all the mercy life bestows. Then also
, to run always, keep running, to not belong, but to have the feeling of belonging
to all the stops, in many places, among many people, of different languages, and
keep going, unable to stop.
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