LES MURRAY: WAITING FOR THE PAST- NEW POEMS

LITTLE did I know, all those years ago, sitting nervously, stomach rumbling, in some innocuous little tutorial somewhere at La Trobe University, that the big man who walked into the room to tell us about his new book of poems would soon become known as one of Australia’s finest ever poets. I’m pretty sure I met him, directly, and felt a very vague sense of awe, but then again maybe I didn’t. It seems a long time ago. I remember distinctly, however, hearing him say that it had been a long time since he had done any sort of real work. The irony of that statement was lost on me at the time. (The book we were studying was, I think, ‘The Vernacular Republic’).

So now I am finding out a bit more about Les Murray, because I have taken the plunge again after a long time of reading overseas poets, skirting around the Australian ones. Les Murray is married. Both he and his wife are old. She has afflictions and needs his care- (‘golden staph bacteria’)- just as his father did when Les’ mother died, and Les came home to look after him.  His 36 year old autistic son also needs his care. The three of them have lived on a farm in rural NSW for a long time, in a place that played a big part in Murray’s childhood as the only child of dairy farmers, called Bunyah. The Australian newspaper recently ran a beautiful, very human portrait of life in Bunyah. The Murray’s seem so real and quietly impressive. Country folk of the type that Kevin Rudd would like. The chat is about a recent car accident that could have been fatal (Murray doesn’t like seat belts), and an anthology in which Nick Cave discusses a Murray poem- ‘Who’s Nick Cave?’, Murray asks his wife. ‘I don’t know the bloke.’ And why would he?

The other slightly odd and slightly charming thing about Murray is the fact that he doesn’t like computers. He types his poems- on a typewriter. To think that that still happens. Depression isn’t ‘slightly charming’ however. Murray wrote a book of poems about ‘the black dog.’ He has had it (along with extreme hypochondria), his father had it, and his mother, Miriam, had it for half of the time Murray knew her. She often miscarried, and only Murray survived. It haunts him still to think that maybe he caused these miscarriages, or maybe that this is what his mother thought each time a new baby didn’t survive. And Murray was bullied, a lot. One can only imagine. The sum of his girth and his brain.

The new book has the enigmatic title ‘Waiting For The Past’ (Black Inc).  It is a little slim black volume with a sepia coloured dustjacket of a drawing of the portico of a handsome old house. There is a great range of topics explored in these new poems, all under a page or two in word length, perfect for reading and re-reading in order to gain maximum pleasure and understanding.

 

 

Many of these poems are built around memories, of recent times or the distant past. Murray is clearly of the age in which it is important to remember. ‘Inspecting The Rivermouth’ takes us on his journey to Hahndorf and Hindmarsh Island, and home again, somewhat matter of factly:

 

‘the barrages de richesse,

Film culture, horseradish farms,

Steamboats kneading heron-blue

Lake, the river full again.

Upstream, the iron cattle bridges,

So. Then a thousand miles

home across green lawn.’

 

A poem called ‘High Rise’ set in Beijing describes air conditioners on windows as ‘wristwatch-shaped’, hinting at the multitude of them, and ‘burglar bars’ on each window to the tenth floor. Murray remembers the days before television, seeing American films at the drive-in, and being transported into another world where people on screen would ‘kiss slow with faces crossed’, enchanting to any naïve kid.

A significant memory contained in one of the best poems, called ‘High Speed Trap Space’, is of a collision in the car with animal with ‘big neck, muzzle and horns…’ on a narrow road in the bush on a ‘rainy dark’ night. The feeling of entrapment and claustrophobia is contained in ‘Nowhere to swerve-but out between trunks stepped an animal…’. The car is described as ‘our little room’ racing on to ‘a beheading.’ The deadly seriousness and potential violence of the situation is captured graphically:

 

‘No dive down off my seat would get me low

enough to escape the crane-swing of that head

and its imminence of butchery and glass.’

 

Murray braces himself for the worst, and even though the collision is avoided, it may as well have taken place:

 

‘My brain was still full of the blubber lip,

the dribbling cud. In all but reality

the bomb stroke had still happened.’

 

The whole Azaria Chamberlain/ dingo story is evoked poignantly but succinctly in ‘Being Spared The Inquests.’ A localised fright- ‘a toddler’s scream’- but the horror is avoided as:

 

‘Our valley came this close

to a deadly later fame.’

 

The unfortunate schism between Ireland and its northern neighbour is featured in ‘All of Half Way’ where the speaker is advised to take off his green cap before he gets to ‘Coleraine’ (Derry) - it is only ‘our equestrian team cap’, and ‘colours aren’t yet mortal in Australia’, says the poet wryly.

 

Sometimes the memory is focused on a clearly stated location, as in ‘A Denizen’, about an octopus at Wylie’s Baths. By using ‘bing’ I can discover that Wylie’s Baths is an ocean tidal pool near Coogee, NSW. Murray sometimes offers precise locations in order to take you there. The ‘octopus is dead’, right ‘below the circus balustrade/ and the chocked sea tiles.’ Once entertaining the children by hanging ‘from its cupped feet’, it now, chlorine-infested,

 

 ‘…lies, slop biltong,

 beak and extinct pasta

out in the throwaway tide

and will leave with the wobbegong.’

The ‘wobbegong’ I know from reading Tim Winton, but ‘biltong’? Apparently a dried, cured meat from South Africa.

 

The poem ‘Growth’ refers to the growing cancer in ‘friendly Gran’, as well as the growth in the speaker who grieves because he is ‘barred’ from seeing her (‘…Grannie’s death had/ been hidden away, as cancer/ still was then…’), and growth in the crossing of a threshold of sorts: ‘I was hugged and laughed over/ for the miles I’d covered’ in a long walk trying to make sense of it all.

 

Elsewhere Murray celebrates, in his memory, 1960, which ‘Brought the Electric’- ‘the new yellow glare/ that has reached us at last’; recalls the sober experience of being on ‘Bench Seats’ when the polite conversation of a girl with Downs Syndrome is met with ‘a whispered grimace of mirth’ between two women she is addressing; and chillingly recounts a high school massacre in which ‘…a celibate/ victim of years ago divines/ We’re shooting back now.’

 

Besides a strong focus on memories, Murray main preoccupation seems to be matters of family and matters of health, as you might expect from a man writing in his seventies. Poems about the aging body, hospital visits, body replacements and falls.  In ‘Diabetica’, in a poem that just might be closing in on Sylvia Plath confessional, Murray writes of a man who ‘…yawns upright/ trying not to dot the floor/ with little advance pees.’ Murray, it appears, is visiting his wife Valerie in hospital in ‘The Plaster Eater’, she who is undergoing (another?) knee operation. The end of the poem features one of the loveliest tributes I have seen between two old lovers-

 

‘I, butter boy, sipper of vinegar,

am amazed as ever how you,

dear pardoner, kindest wife,

always blame yourself

as now, beyond hospital staph

and the overworking knife.’                                  

 

‘Vertigo’ tells the story of a speaker who sounds just like Murray who has fallen in the shower-room of a hotel he is staying in (always worse when it’s not your place). The pragmatic nature of the speaker is illustrated by his understanding that falls of this kind mean it’s ‘…time to call the purveyor/ of steel pipe and indoor railings…’ Furthermore, there will come a time with the arrival of:

 

‘…the sunny day when

street detail gets whitened to mauve

and people hurry you, or wait, quiet.’

 

 

This enthralling and varied slim booklet of poems was all created on Les Murray’s beloved Brother typewriter- as discussed in his poem about a third of the way through this collection- ‘The Privacy of Typewriters’:

‘I am an old book troglodyte

one who composes on paper

and types up the result

as many times as need be.’

 

For Murray, the computer prints ‘text that looks pre-published.’ And it doesn’t awaken or seduce his senses like the typewriter does:

 

‘I fear a carriage

that doesn’t move or ding,

no inky marching hammers

leaping up and subsiding.’

 

The typewriter has its advantages- mistakes made- ‘whiteouts where thought deepened’, and ‘wise freedom from Spell Check’; and lo and behold if you hit the wrong key- ‘a writhe of child pornography’ might suddenly fill the screen, and, scarily,

 

‘…the doors booting open

and the cops handcuffing me,

to a gristlier video culture

coralline in an ever colder sea.’

 

Oh, to one day drive off, far away, to Bunyah, NSW with a bottle of red, and knock on the door of the Murray’s, just like Ted Hughes did forty or so years ago with his brother Gerald, when they drove to meet their painting hero, Hans Heysen, in Hahndorf, SA.

 

FAVOURITE YOUTUBE JOURNEYS: THE ARTISTS IN THEIR STUDIO

THE first time I can ever recall looking at YOUTUBE.COM was when I came across a link on a Van Morrison website for his frenetic song ‘Mystic Eyes’ – an enigmatic performance taken inside some zoo grounds with ‘Cuby and the Blizzards as backing, a guitarist running around and around a tree. I loved the clip- still do- and it set me off for hundreds, if not thousands, of YOUTUBE journeys.

VAN: MYSTIC EYES

Some of the clips I have watched the most are live clips from favourite performers, like Elvis singing Unchained Melody, and Joni singing Amelia, Melanie with Ruby Tuesday, The Moody Blues dubbed somewhere in Paris in a concert called The Lost Performances 1970, even America on German television with I Need You, and an exhilarating performance by Stevie Nicks of Rhiannon on Burt Sugarman’s Midnight Special.

 

Then there are these clips, special for that extra bit that they can add. They consist of footage of the singer or the band performing live in the studio in preparation for the album. Each of them offers fascinating insight into the craft of recording, and what it tells about each performer.

 

This first one is of Simon and Garfunkel in 1969 in a rehearsal of the majestic Bridge Over Troubled Water, from a documentary called Songs of America 1969. From the same film is footage of their special live performance of the beautiful For Emily Whenever I May Find Her.

 

Art sings Bridge Over Troubled Water dutifully whilst Paul wanders around the studio looking at various stages tired or grumpy. When his ‘mic’ doesn’t come into play immediately for the shared ‘Sail on silver girl…’ he barks orders consisting of ‘where’s my mic!’ Towards the end of the song he wanders behind Art and dances and does his own orchestral moves, clearly enjoying the tune. I love watching it, not just for the lovely, lovely music, but also because I fancy that I can read Paul Simon’s ecstatic sense of ‘wow, what a great song I have written’, on his face, and I find that intriguing; and also because his grumpiness reminds me of the story, apocryphal or not, that he was always jealous that his partner got to sing the majority of the track, and received most of the plaudits as a result. The performance is raw and it makes me think that the song is young and fresh, like newly grown flowers, and that is exciting.

 

SIMON & GARFUNKEL: BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER

 

I grew up pretty much obsessed with The Doors. I had great fun wearing my Jim Morrison t-shirt in the Year 12 school photo. I wore a Morrison badge everywhere I went. Not many people my age back then seemed to know them. This was the period before the great Doors renaissance that occurred around 1980-81. It was rumoured that John Travolta was going to play Jim in a film (it ended up being Val Kilmer). Slowly, slowly some of my friends caught on to how good they were, and then we started collecting bootlegs. Wild Child is a good song, but I don’t think it’s one of their very best. This clip is unique, though, in that it captures the band and their producers in the studio rehearsing, and possibly even laying down, the definitive take. Jim looks stoned, Robby appears to be quiet and going with the flow, John is practising his drumming, and Ray is trying desperately to get some control happening. It’s just as I would have pictured it. Jim is clearly having a great time, much to Paul Rothchild’s chagrin. ‘Don’t overblow it, Jim, we’ve got a long way to go…’ One imagines he might have said these words plenty of times. After some false starts, the song begins, sounding just like it appears on the record, and a transformation takes place. Like a true professional. Jim suddenly becomes serious- concentrating but posturing, eyes closed, doing his best to pay due credit to his great lyrics and whatever the others have done to his words. He looks and sounds wonderful, enough to make Michael Hutchence cry.

 

This revealing clip intrigues me for another reason. It shows rehearsals for the album The Soft Parade. If you look at the footage of Jim singing other songs from the album- Touch Me and Tell All The People- outside of the studio-he is fully bearded and looks much older. Did his looks alter that much, so quickly? It all may be partly explained by the fact that the album took a total of nine months to record, beginning in June 1968. By all accounts a lot of this was due to Jim’s alcoholism and general apathy. There is a hint of this in this clip. My guess what we see is very much a truncated account.

 

 

THE DOORS: WILD CHILD

 

 

The Rolling Stones have always been a strange fit for me. A band I admire, for their music, enigma, charisma, the same reasons I like The Doors, as a matter of fact- but there is some sort of hole, or chasm in my appreciation, and I have never really been able to work out why. It might because I don’t know their music well enough- just their ‘popular’ songs, mainly. And they don’t work for me in a lot of cases all that well. I am thinking about ‘You Don’t Always Get…’; ‘I Know It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll; ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’; ‘Get Off My Cloud’, etc, etc- all ok tunes but not ones I would deliberately listen to. Then there are the ‘classics’, like ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ and ‘Brown Sugar’, great songs but for my brain the appreciation wears off- in other words I tire of them- I would say this is the same for ‘Wild Horses’ as well- I will it to be a GREAT song, a masterpiece, but it doesn’t quite seem to me to get there- unlike, say, my favourite Stones songs like ‘Gimme Shelter’ or ‘’Street Fighting Man’ which I CAN listen to every week of the year.

Nevertheless, I do really enjoy this clip of ‘Wild Horses’- it really is something to watch a tired looking, really hard working band laying back to hear the fruits of their success and hard work, knowing that they do have a lovely song, and listening carefully to it to make sure it is exactly what they want. It reminds me a little of the story about Justin Hayward who apparently cried when he heard ‘Nights in White Satin’ played back for the first time- this one not quite as euphoric! Mick: pensive, thoughtful, ultimately content;  Charlie: nearly asleep???;  Keith: having the time of his life. Each member of the band probably listening to their own personal contribution to the song- the vocals, guitars, drums.

 

THE ROLLING STONES: WILD HORSES

This is Nick Cave in the studio during the making of ‘No More Shall We Part’, in Abbey Road Studios, around 2001. My favourite album of his- I played it to death in the car on the way home and on the way to one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever had, in a place called Mansfield, Nottingham, UK. This is probably the most polished of all the studio recordings, a kind of documentary feel, like it was always going to be released. There are other songs that feature on this DVD as well.

Nick Cave looks very serious, very professional, wanting to do a great, sombre serious justice, with the rest of the band fully committed as well. The false starts are magical, as is the intensity of emotions, the removal from the loose, anarchic days of ‘Nick The Stripper’, the live playing of music in separate rooms, the mixing, everyone’s contorted faces, and the fantastic blast of aggression at the end with Cave standing up and throwing everything behind it- ’98 out of 100? Well we better do another one then!”

 

NICK CAVE: MY SORROWFUL WIFE

 

 

An Homage to Katherine Mansfield 1888-1923 No. 2

The Tiredness of Milly

When the Smartbus arrived at the Madden Street junction at the exact time she hoped it would, Milly dragged her tired limbs onto the first step and used the small handrail to clamber onto the path of the bus proper. In her right hand was her vinyl briefcase and in her head were memories of last night and the dull repetition of the previous nights before- and, oh, for as long as she could remember. There had been, for some time now, the ‘infotainment’ shows like ‘My Kitchen Rules’, and ‘Masterchef’, both as bad as each other and now the news itself had become dreary, and there was those ghastly American courtroom and law and order shows on every other channel… Milly looked around at all the flashy advertising on the walls of the bus, and the driver’s door, and even above her on the roof if you ever craned your neck that high. Notices about fare evasion abounded-  she always hated the way young people- students mostly, refused to pay their way- and there was a droll notice about changes that were about to be made at the Northland interchange… and when it came right down to it there weren’t too many advertisements, they all seemed to be from the transport commission, about giving up your seat to pregnant women, and the consequences of placing your feet on the seat, and a number to ring if, as a passenger, you see anything suspicious. The explanation of what might entail ‘suspicious’ was not made clear.

Then Milly glanced around at the other people on the bus. Everybody had the same expression, sitting so still, looking directly in front of them. She counted twelve people all together, excluding the bus driver, and all but two besides herself were engaged in the use of a mobile phone in some way, whether it be employing some kind of application, texting someone or merely scrolling a screen stupidly and automatically.

The bright lights of Bell Street threw a hazy glow onto the windows of the bus. Milly noticed with relief that Balmoral Avenue appeared through the windscreen gloom. It was sudden but as luck would have it somebody else wanted Milly’s stop and had planned its arrival better. The rear doors yawned open and Milly spilled onto the street, crossed the road with the 7-Eleven on the corner, and walked solemnly around the corner into the path of her apartment.

Her own room at last! She closed the door, put the kettle and the radio on, unfastened her shoes and stepped out of her dress. She found a half- finished bottle of wine in a cupboard and some crackers besides the fridge. Milly found herself staring at the plum-coloured carpet at her feet, as she eased herself slowly into a chair. Whenever she stared like that she asked herself if she was happy. She often had these interior conversations. She hated sitting completely still, in case depressing thoughts came into her head. Besides the useless chatter coming from the radio, everything else was completely still. How she longed for a knock at the door or the phone to ring. This feeling of melancholy stillness lasted long enough for Milly to finish her wine. She began to think about everything that had happened that day.

 

Milly taught her Year 7 class first thing in the morning. As she emerged from the room, feeling good about things because her fears of an unruly class were not even close to being realised, Harry Taylor walked toward her from the opposite direction. He must have seen her smile because he wanted to chat now it was recess. ‘It’s funny’, thought Milly, ‘how everyone wants to speak to you when you have a smile on your face, but hide or look away when they see you glower.’

 

Harry Taylor was always strict with his kids. Milly was glad her students had not interrupted his, two doors away. She saw right away that he was feeling good about something too, a rich beam spread across his encouraging face. Milly accepted his invitation to stop, somewhat apprehensively, because it hadn’t happened before.

 

‘Hi Milly, something’s made you happy. You know, I have never been able to reconcile the thought of you being a teacher, even for the whole two or three years you’ve been here. None of the teacher’s at my school when I was a kid looked like you. There is nothing remotely teacher-like about you!’

 

Milly felt her face redden, and couldn’t help asking, ‘ so what is a teacher supposed to look like then?’

 

Harry’s face flickered and his eyes glanced over Milly’s shoulder, and he replied ‘oh, I think you know exactly what I am talking about.’

 

She had thought of nothing else all day; she shivered in her sudden realisation that Harry’s face fascinated her; she could see clearly the soft lines around his cheeks and the small, charming grey stubble on his chin; his grey eyes that were soft and endearing; his teeth that were surprisingly small and even and still naturally white despite what Milly knew to be his mature age.

 

Suppose Milly invited Harry Taylor back home, to Balmoral Avenue. She would have to get rid of quite a lot of clutter. She would be embarrassed by her bedspread and her old, faded yellow towels. The ugly gnome by the front door would have to go as well as her sentimental collection of snow domes from all over the world that had been on her dining room shelves forever, depicting places Milly had never been to, and in some cases, had never heard of.

‘Come in, Harry’, she would giggle, and offer him a glass of her favourite McLaren Vale wine. She would ask him to take off his shoes, and take him on a tour of the apartment and show him the lounge and the two bedrooms. She would sit next to him on the couch and finger her glass romantically and smile flirtingly and offer him some Chocolate Royals.

A glint of moonlight shone through the bay windows. Sitting at opposite ends of the couch now, Harry and Milly’s shoeless feet touched meaningfully. Milly felt light-headed and filled to the brim with happiness. Harry’s pleasant faced creased into an involuntary smile. Now there were two small crystal glasses filled with a strong dark liquorice liqueur. Milly’s favourite Beethoven Cello Sonata floated through the air. Milly’s shoulders twitched. She looked at Harry’s heavy, commanding hands and asked him if he would massage her neck and shoulders. Harry leant forward into Milly’s aromatic space…

The real Milly crept away from the couch and undressed slowly. The stress of the teaching day meant she could smell a faint odour of sweat. She struggled with her underclothes and accidentally ripped a gaping hole in her left stocking. Feeling drunk and ill at the same time, Milly had difficulty finding her balance and settled for an ungainly squat in an ugly attempt at the Lotus position. Her mind became filled with the messy minutiae of the day that lay ahead, seemingly only hours away now. She threw her arm out to grasp something that wasn’t there. A cry reverberated around her apartment’s walls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Creative Exercise as an Homage to Katherine Mansfield 1888-1923

1. The Coin

 

WHEN Milly emerged from the hot afternoon sun and crept indoors holding a greasy old chain, her father sighed and her mother trembled with fury.

‘You really must do something about her!’, she exclaimed, ‘and stop treating her like a baby.’

‘What is it you propose I do?’ asked Milly’s father a little glumly, resentfully.

‘Well, she has to learn. She is doing these things to bait us. God knows if it will ever end if you don’t jump on her now. Amelia, when are you going to stop trying to upset your parents?’ asked her mother forcefully, aggressively.

Milly’s features quickly became troubled. Her bottom lip protruded and she felt bereft, as though a tiny pearl which once lay in her soft palm now decided to suddenly shatter. She didn’t speak for fear the old stammer would return. She wandered over to her father in small, resentful baby steps, and attempted to bury her soft face in his big chest. At that moment he stole a glance at his wife and she signalled back a tortured expression- a look that said ‘there you go again- babying her…’

A swift change of mood crept over the face of Milly’s father as he tried to betray his own moral sense and began lecturing his daughter in order to appease her mother. The awkwardness he felt meant that he unwittingly overstepped the mark.

‘You heard your mother. That greasy old chain is the final straw! Get your act together or we will put you in your room until night time. You are a silly, childish petulant little girl!’

Milly, abandoned, felt her face crumple and hot tears dripped down in anger and shame. As she rushed out of the room, blinded, her father began making tentative steps towards his daughter. He faltered when his wife’s frown came into focus, but charged ahead, determinedly, to rescue his forlorn little princess. When he reached his daughter he shoved a dollar coin into her trembling hand, and she accepted it with grateful sobs.

 

 

 

 

Looking for Joni

 

 

IT was in the stillness of the car, driving along Bell Street, where something happened to cause me to take a sharp, inward breath. A was rustling in one of the back seats and I had the radio playing. The afternoon news. Half listening. Drifting slightly, but still concentrating. The speaker on the radio mentioning something about Joni Mitchell. Joni is never mentioned on the news. It suddenly hit me that she might be dead. Then it registered. No, not dead, but ill, in hospital, some sort of a collapse, like fainting perhaps. It sounded ominous in its own way- it was big enough news to make it on Melbourne radio, after all- but at least it wasn’t fatal.

I spoke to A in the back seat. A, although she is only six years old, has her own special connection to Joni. She listened in her own vague semi-conscious six year old way. She understood I was feeling stressed and concerned and wanting to tell other people, adults, right away. “Oh my God, I thought he was going to say she is dead.”

Naturally, after this, in fact for the next few weeks leading up to today, April 22, I have been, in a sense, contemplating life after Joni. The quietness about what has happened is extraordinary. No-one is saying anything. Joni has been in hospital at least three weeks and no-one knows anything. Every day I look at newspaper reports across the globe. These are either infrequent or are saying the same thing. Privacy is a wonderful thing, and in a way it is extraordinarily good that the whole world is dumb about this. But on the other side of the coin, for me, it is troubling. I would just like to know. I would like to be there, or at least send a message. Is Joni dying? Or is she really recovering ok as www.jonimitchell.com would have you believe.

Joni feels like some kind of relative. I have thought of her every day during this ordeal. The self-portrait of her wearing her heart on her sleeve on the cover of her orchestral album (Both Sides Now) is on my screensaver. Her songs are in my head. I fancy that I know her or have met her…

The closest I ever came, and ever will come, to meeting Joni Mitchell was when I was in London in 2002. I heard somewhere that she was leasing George Martin’s AIR studio in Hampstead for this aforementioned record. i soon discovered that I was two weeks too late. The man in charge saw that I was dejected by this news, so he took me to the vocal booth where she had sung so many of her songs just days earlier. “See”, he said, laughing, “you can still smell the smoke from her cigarettes!” I then met one of the mixing men, who explained that the songs were still in the stage of being finished. He played me the orchestral beginning of one song, but I couldn’t make it out. “I must be tone deaf”, I said. It turned out to be ‘The Circle Game’ which should be fairly recognisable.

So I play her songs like I have, often, since about 1978. Discovering new little things along the way, reading the book by Katherine Monk called ‘Joni’, which was ok but a bit disjointed and a bit gossipy, hearing the song ‘Man From Mars’ in a new way, knowing now that it is was written about her missing cat, Nietzsche, who appears on the ‘Taming the Tiger’ cover, and generally waiting and waiting, and hoping for good news, and wondering about the silence, reading about Morgellon’s disease, thinking that ‘there’s comfort in melancholy, when it’s so hard to explain.’