Turning the Corner
[wpvideo Hfb2MdXV ]
As a companion to the launch of my new collection “A Night Sea Journey’ I have had great fun on my recent holiday, with Wilma my wife, recording some of my poems. We made a personal pilgrimage to San Remy in Provence where Vincent Van Gogh lived and painted for a year in an Asylum recovering from his one of his many night sea journeys. Then we went on to Assisi and that is where I recorded this piece.
Francis of Assisi really struggled with his relationship with his father. He is famed for having stripped naked in front of the Bishop and for having given his clothes back to his Father after he had sold some of his Dad’s cloth to help fund his church rebuilding program. His father was so scandalised that he sought justice against what he perceived as his son’s ingratitude. The mayor sent them to the Bishop as Francis appealed to God as a reason for his behaviour.
In the face of his father’s ire Francis proclaimed that he now had no father except God. This must have stung his family and so angry was Pietro Bernadone, his father, that when they bumped into each other his Dad would call down curses on him; this estranged and ungrateful son. So troubled was Francis by this that he took a beggar when he went into his home town to bless him when his father called down imprecations upon him. This was a life long night sea journey for them both and I think this brokenness has much to communicate to us as children and parents.
I have two cycles of poems that are a dialogue with both Vincent and Francis about our mutual night sea journeying.
You can buy my new book at http://www.adriangrscott.com/books-audio/a-night-sea-journey, or on Amazon.