"My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety."
William Wordsworth - 1802
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'The Child is father of the Man'*
and when the Child grows old, Man takes him into care;
but all the lobed Apocrypha of air
can save neither from the Master-plan.
The Child struggles to re-cloak his innocence;
numb-Stoic Man must turn aside from thought:
each singly slipping down a throat of nought,
that universe shall end without remembrance.
Oh, but if we never were, then what is this
present that we share, unwrapped and bright -
the orb of sun, this blessing of gold light
half moon that sparks the frost with coldest bliss?
Wrap arms round each other and the round world;
singing on fire as Lethe-wards we're hurled.
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*I use this given line from Wordsworth but of course it applies as a generality and is not specific to one sex or gender.
(NB. I am not binding this poem tightly to syllable count. )
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YOU ARE READING
Greenclad.
PoetryIvy-jacketed, December oaks on road-borders shock their stark gestures at us now, through sun and sleet, that January will yawn at and February, propping eyelids, will desperately ignore, longing for blossom; and making do with the least of anything...
