The Tower

I was on the fast train to London a month ago and just outside Market Harborough I caught a glimpse of a tower. It caught my gaze - perhaps because, as I focussed on it, all else swirled and moved whilst it remained still. But still the image transfixed me. I found my face pressed to the glass and it has been enticing me since. The idea of "The Tower" has mesmerised me in a strange way. I have tried to write about it and I opened a book of WB Yeats poems, at random, in response to a friend's request to read some poetry and it fell open at "The Tower". On a recent journey I tried to find it again and, just as I recognised the wood it is in, my headphones played a Fleetwood Mac song..."Don't take me to the tower, don't take my child away..." I have spoken about it to friends and several have offered ideas, pieces of music and pictures. I am following the muse on this one and, as always have little idea where it will lead. I do know it will link to the idea of height and solace and seeing things from a different perspective, as in my previous piece on mountains - we must have built towers to gain height... It is even informing my thinking about functionality and moral purpose - the train, rushing me to work being the functionality and the still Tower, calm and separate seems to taunt me about higher moral purposes. Weird or what?

This experience turned into a rather  long poem - see separate page of this BLOG