"Fowles in the frith
the fisshes in the floode
but I mon wax awode
much sorwe I walke with
for beste of boon and blode."*
Qua-qua, quack-quack!
The innocent leaves don't know it, Green-Jack,
the vast majority of us imagine,
and the pale sun-lamp, cloud-bulbed,
in the bones of elder,
for all our love, is a plasma ball -
at best a philosopher,
swimming in the space-whorl
of our galaxy.
Yes, hedge it with this and that -
the mirror test has been de-throned.*
Some cats are self-aware enough,
and yet can't carry bags for us
'Shoo-shoo, scat-scat!'
For luggage is our specialty.
Time weighs upon the rationalizing mind -
since on but one fragment of antiquity
a tome can be erected like a tomb.
Lucky scattered junkyards of yesterdays
defy our integration; or what vast
libraries of folly would ensue
to scholar us from spontaneity?
We're wise to laugh at marks upon the wall,
or cracks that gush like watercourses to the
glittering eyes.*
Yes, let the birds distract us from ourselves,
as we sit with our bags on the flagstones,
weighed down in bone,
pressured in blood.
"Here are your tablets. Take them do.
Put on your shoe
lest cold winds bite your toes.
Blow your nose
and in to study hard.
Fetch back in your silly bags with you
from the winter yard."
....................
* 1) The medieval poem (by Anon - no less) translates:-
'Birds are in the woods
fishes in the lake
but I must go mad -
too much sorrow I walk with
for beast of bone and blood.'
* 2) The test can be taught. Nothing mystically indicative about it.
* 3) Lines allude to Virginia Woolf's, 'The Mark on the Wall' and Yeats' poem, 'Lapis Lazuli'.
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...
