There have always been, throughout my lucky
life, squadrons of quite unexpected flukes
awaiting me at every turn; this is, no doubt,
a decent working-definition of the Nature of
Existence – I am not now, nor have I ever been –
a claimant to Originality!
But since I'm old and
faltering towards… who knows what… I just feel
absurdly grateful for a book – it's one I found
upon the small, select, usually untroubled
local library shelf of verse – I open it and find
at once a poem by that twisted, hunch-backed dwarf
I thought I knew, old Alexander, Pontiff of the Lock,
extolling piss, because its fount would lead
a knowing seeker to the Heart!
This morning, home abed and comfortable in
calm, agnostic Winter dawn, I reached across
the bedside table, narrowly avoiding
spillage of the dregs of last night's
whisky, and found the Book – I smiled again at
Alexander's earthy flaunting of the blunt,
ironic purposes of smut and all its masculine
appeal; but suddenly, quite unannounced , an
unknown medieval poet, in eight small lines brings
Mary to my bed foot, claims attention, runs with
utter confidence – I almost hear his smiling voice –
a well-honed lance into the swelling
heart that every parent must acknowledge – mine's
ever full – and tells me in such simple terms
that under all the blue-robed iconography She
was a but Mother, and the Rood was nothing
to her but an invitation to her own death!
A blessed unbeliever, I am swamped by
inundating tears – a mere millennium or
two between us, God's Mother, and a
Father Finite of a Blissful Brood who'll never
read this – or if they do, they'll shake their
heads and mutter, 'I guess that's what
the silly bugger might have thought of then!'
Ross Kightly
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment