A minor

Everything is important, everything is intense and of the greatest interest. that's what ghin tells me as he points and babbles at the washing machine - or Leapfrog drum. I can't tell which. But i answer him anyway, Yes, i say, bring it here - in case it is the drum. He ignores me. his attention has shifted to his bowl of cereal lying on the floor. A soggy heap of cheerios which he has drizzled with apple juice. He picks it up and begins shovelling bits into his mouth as he walks away. Even his walking is urgent. He draws his arms up and goes off i his mini walk-run. It's the kind of walk like the ones which walkerthoners do.

Bach's A minor violin concerto - a tribute to Anthony Mhingella. We are here and we are gone - and the essence in this life is its sweetness. What do we have if we have ignored it? The distillation, the wisdom of the bees, to sip this colourless liquid and transform it into a healing gold. That is our duty, says Bach, i have plucked this out of the stars. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Perhaps that is what we mean by freedom. To be free to be gentle. To be free to imagine. To be free to love. With great tenderness and delicacy. The fragility of living - to be free to watch it spin itself out in a spider's web, on a lake at sunset, to see the frost creep over lawns, or buds, sticky with sap, uncurl like the fists of a sleeping newborn. To long and long and never feel foolish. To be fulfilled and not feel guilty. To dream and not be lost. To laugh and know you are heard.