Loss

So come, my friends, be not afraid.
We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made;
In love we disappear

At least until the transhumanist dream becomes a reality, which according to one leading modern philosopher may be never, we will cling on to whatever we can that reminds us of our loved ones.

I share below (without comment...which is a personal act that belongs in the real, not the virtual world), an evolving, far from exhaustive, but from an emotional point-of-view, highly illustrative and authentic selection of my favourite poetry and lyrics...

When I loved you
And you loved me,
You were the sea,
The sky, the tree.

Now skies are skies,
And seas are seas,
And trees are brown
And they are trees.

– Charles A. Wagner

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Sometimes we choose to wander, sometimes we are chosen to wander, down the dark deserted halls of memory:

'Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream...
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years...
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.'

Many evenings of my youth were spent listening to Radio Caroline's "Personal Top 30s", from 6-9pm and 9pm-midnight on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. My friends and I would write down, swap, be inspired by and gently criticise each others' choices, but none of us ever got round to posting ours in, and our chance vanished into the North Sea with the Mi Amigo in March 1980.

However, since 2008 I have listened almost constantly to Caroline, which plays "Personal Top 15s" every weekday at 10am CET, but again, I've not summoned the nerve to send mine in.

Now online, Proensa's interpretations of the troubadours have enchanted me - though perhaps not some of the dinner party guests on whom I inflicted the vinyl version at various times - for the best part of 30 years.

Is it really as long ago as 1983-85 that I specialised in Medieval Provencal and wrote my dissertation on the amour de loinh of Pierre Vidal? Rupert Gordon and I were the only students at Edinburgh to choose the option in many a year, and having been back in the George Square for the first time since 1985 earlier this year, I wonder whether anyone else has borrowed any of the books since!