Terror Time - February 5, 2012

It was kind of dreary, but reasonably warm day. High somewhere near 40°F. Anya walked with me down the block this morning, and then we went to the dog park for almost an hour this afternoon. There's almost no snow left on the ground, and not much prospect of any. Just February gray. Even the heavy frost is gone.

Some friends came over to sing tonight, and they brought up Ewan Macoll's "Terror Time," part of his cycle about the "traveling people" in Britain: Roma (Gypsies), tinkers, and other itinerant wanderers.

The heather will fade
And the bracken will die
Streams will run cold and clear
And the small birds will be going
And it's then you will be knowing
That the terror time is near

Whaur will ye gang
And whaur will ye bide
Nou that the wark's aa dune
An the fairmer disnae need ye
An the council winnae heed ye
An the terror time is here

The woods give no shelter
And the trees they are bare
Snow's lying all around
And the children they are crying
For the bed on which they're lying
Is frozen to the ground

When you need the warmth
Of your own human kind
You move near a town
And the sight of you's offending
And the police they soon are sending
An ye're on the road again

-Ewan Macoll, © Stormking Music, from Macoll's 1964 Radio Ballad, "The Traveling People."

 There is a kind of endless bleakness to this time of year, and a sense of winter stores beginning to not seem so endless, which we have utterly lost in our modern world. Mostly. Those who are homeless and living rough... for them this is indeed the depth of the year. I'm guessing for many, they are happy with this freakishly mild winter, and still looking forward to real warmth.

I don't think there's much more to say. Macoll said it all pretty much.