Erik Satie and the Blackbird

on listening to Satie's ‘Vexations’ played from noon to dawn by a relay of pianists in Salem Chapel, Hay-on-Wye

The blackbird sings

for eighteen hours

with a bead of rain

in its throat.

First notes at first light.

Four in the morning

and he’ll be there

with his mouth full of gold.

The piano crosses an ocean

on one wing,

noon to midnight

and through to dawn.

This is the nightshift,

you and the rain

and the pianist awake,

navigating the small hours.

While the blackbird sleeps

under a dark wing,

the town breathing,

the wash of a car on a wet street,

the world turns over

in the dark. The sleepless

travel on. They know by heart

their own refrains.

The pianist doesn't turn the page.

Just back to the top

where music collects

opening its throat to the rain,

and somewhere two bells

count down the hours

towards first light, landfall,

the downpour of a blackbird singing.

GILLIAN CLARKE