At the Window
At the Window
by Piers Plowright
There’s an old Blues by Jimmy Y
It tells you how and it tells you why
When to laugh and when to cry
It’s ‘At the Window’.
I see my father in a pool of glass
Listen to the deepest loss
Reach for pen and looking-glass
He’s ‘At the Window’.
I hear children down the lanes
Break the schoolroom’s paper chains
Dodge the night of passing trains
They’re ‘At the Window’.
I feel my silence at the river’s edge,
My blindness and my privilege
My deafness to religion’s pledge
I’m ‘At the Window’.
The old man closed the piano lid
Didn’t care what ‘Momma’ did
Folded back the coverlid
And shut the window.
[Jimmy Yancey’s 1940s solo Blues ‘At the Window’ has haunted me for 20 years. I’ve always associated it with my doctor father, and on a train [London/Folkestone] and a station [Paddington] I brought in the children, my own life, and Jimmy’s death from cancer long before his wife ‘Momma’ Yancey. Finished Thursday 6th April 2006]
