What the Bell Told

I live with a sense of given time. That gnomic phrase sits in my head . It may be a response to a rare sunny morning in February; everything has a gilded edge. I slip a blank notebook, a pen and a book called Free Logic into my bag to read on the way into Sheffield. I tell Adrienne I’m going to the “Inside the Circle of Fire” exhibition, a “Sound Map” of Sheffield. It consists of a darkened gallery where you lie on the floor immersed in the sounds of the city and the surrounding countryside. I have the first line of a poem I want to write: “This is a city grafted onto the hills”; I have the last line: “Sheffield is what I think with”, but nothing in-between, so I think I need to go and float on that map again.

I read my way into the city via bus and tram and poems. I like “Fatherhood”. It gets me thinking of Kipling’s “If”, but I don’t know what “the flehmen face” is ...flaming face maybe, like Blake’s “The Tyger”? “Free Logic” is a good title and guide to its anarchic and elegant contents.

I get off the tram on West Street and drop into Rare and Racy. Joe and Alan are deep behind the counter involved in some complicated phone negotiation and transaction. I find Under the Reservoir by Peter Redgrove and Red Doc> by Anne Carson for three pounds each. I’m happy with that, and then I’m on my way down Division Street.

I don’t get far when I hear and feel a bell tolling, vibrating in the pavement. Where does it come from? I turn right onto Carver Lane and look at the spire of St.Mathew’s where it squeezes up between blocks of grey shops and offices. I go into the alcove of the church. The bell seems to be a call to attend Low Mass. I daren’t go in, but I take out my notebook and start writing. IN HOC SIGNO VINCES is on the wall in front of me, which I don’t recognise and can’t translate. People come in saying “Hello” and “Good morning!” in a very warm and welcoming manner. I peer inside to the altar but don’t go in.

Back on Division Street I’m surprised to find myself fishing in my pocket to give a handful of change to a scruffy lad sitting outside Sainsbury’s Local. It seems to cause a chain reaction: a girl stops and gives him a lit cigarette and a woman fishes out a sandwich from her shopping bag.

I do a bit of magical thinking as I head to the Blue Moon for lunch wondering if I should start believing in God or in my own poetical powers. In the cafe a girl in a purple dress asks if she can share my table. Of course. My glance makes her dress slip off her shoulder. She repositions it and smiles. I enjoy my broccoli cheese bake and ginger beer.

After lunch I head for the Millennium Gallery and the exhibition. When I get there it’s closed because there’s a lunchtime talk in progress. The Sound Map won’t be reopened until later in the afternoon. I mooch around the gallery gift shop. On a table I find The Sheffield Anthology: Poems from the City Imagined. Smith/Doorstop 2012. It’s a beautiful book, a tribute to the creative musical/poetic hub that Sheffield has become. It’s full of people I know, people I’ve talked poetry with, drunk pints with, people I’ve loved and lost. My magical thinking seems to have reached its limit: I look for my own name among the contributors but I’m not there. Oh well, maybe next time.