SO LOOKED CECILIA
Nita leads us up the bridle path from Hermitage Recreation Ground towards the sound of traffic.
Tells tales of past and present. Of fields to the right that developers want to get their hands on. Of protest groups and petitions.
We reach the kerb. Stephenson College and Coalville to the left.
Nita’s head turns both ways and we follow.
so looked Cecilia when she drew
an angel from his station
across the road
and down Spring Lane
wild garlic
Paul Conneally 2011
From ‘Health Walk’ with Nita Pearson ‘Whitwick to Swannington and Back’ May 2011
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Notes
So Looked Cecilia is a haibun. Haibun is a Japanese form of prose containing linked verse - usually haiku or tanka - interspesed with or following the prose. During my walks through the area, including this one led by Nita Pearson, I feel close to Wordsworth. He walks with us. He walked extensively all around this place when he lived at Coleorton and at other times when visiting his friend George Beaumont at Coleorton Hall and his son John Wordsworth when he was parson at Whitwick Church, living in what is now The Old Vicarage Residential Home.
The lines:
So looked Cecilia when she drew
An Angel from his station;
Are from “HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD’S CALM EXPANSE” by William Wordsworth.
Wordsworth tells us the poem was inspired by a print at Coleorton Hall, North West Leicestershire. Mrs Wordsworth’s impression was that HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD’S CALM EXPANSE was also written at Coleorton Hall despite William’s note that it was written at Rydal Mount in the Lake District.
Paul Conneally Transform Snibston Cultural Forager
More Ren (Connections) and Notes:
1. Cecilia is a female given name of Latin origin meaning the way for the blind.
2. St. Cecilia is the Patron Saint of Music and St Cecilia’s Feast Day is November 22nd
3. The Benedictine Sisters of Saint Cecilia are a group of women consecrated religious sisters. These women shear the lambs’ wool used to make the palliums of new metropolitan archbishops and the Pope.
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