Man
From Earth
In
the well I lined with stones
the
water clears.
Born
of decent people,
I
look to my conduct, and see in signs
my
life my only true inheritance,
sheltered
in that strength of witness
as
fate is fostered in the stars.
Before
the register of any beginning
there
is inference to something
darkly
visible, instinctive within us.
A
plain man and simply spoken,
shall
I sojourn in that lost dimension
until
my creature code is broken,
and
believe my life my own
as
signature of that core sensation—
a
silence, transfigured by affection?
Divining
in the air
the
infinite arrangement of another sky,
I
serve the time with labour as I will,
by
the river in the wilderness
a
mercury persona posturing through mirrors,
my
voice no soundless ray, or shape
torn
from time to ghost among the ruins,
but
as a living being in a living air
untroubled
by the destiny of nations,
before
the invention of letters and crochets,
a
brightness binding generations
with
hours which echo into days.
Is
my father’s house my own,
or
do I build a tomb with borrowed stones?
Though
clan books house the rights of kin,
when
the logos of the feudal life has flown
nameless
down some corridor—
the
motto on the crest of arms an echo
lost
in echoes beyond the darkened door—
what
seal of merit defines the man
born
to the axe’s double edge
and
soft plumes the colour of claret?
I
am as I seem, as I was and will be,
in
the manner of the simple heart
cut
down in the faction fray in honest aid of kinsmen.
Such
are the mutations of this life,
in
dread of the turning tide and stars
or
in the sleepy resolutions of an endless afternoon,
in
sudden death or in death that is slow,
in
the wash of centuries, unknowing and unknown.
I
am as I seem, as I was and will be,
and
cherish these freedoms as a separate sense,
the
workday sequence of the present tense transcended,
the
slug of gravity now the shimmering woman-shape of time
whose
grains defy the lateness of the hour—
the
parchment of a thousand years decayed,
the
names of the elders illuminated dust,
the
list of tithes for their souls’ repose now monkscript
scattered
in the evening’s merest rays.
I
listen for them still, those voices from the clearing:
the
Saxon Fulbertus and his sons;
Petrus,
the eldest, hunting sanglier,
harpwire
of the bowstring taut,
his
arrow home before tusk could tear;
Helias
in orders, cloistered cold in Paisley Abbey
and
there to live The Life;
Sire
Robertus if the ilk
descending
to the Ulster Scots of Antrim—
my
kinsman there a captain who served the Interregnum,
and
later wed a widow, daughter of the Chancellor
and
heiress to Moneen estate,
her
father’s land in Donegal along the river Foyle.
Pride
proves the hero.
As
with the oldest god in the oldest myth
outwitted
by men who will not submit,
so
pride proved impetus to men of good name
hard-pressed
to flee Charles Stuart’s reign—
gathering
their families and faith
to
cross to Maryland on the farther shore,
no
rooftree but a Bible
and
a clock inscribed to the appetite of time,
tempus edax rerum, with nothing as it was
before.
The
gauze of memory masks ancient ills,
the
squeal of gulls on Chesapeake Bay
more
foreign then than now:
death
in childbirth, fever in the marshes,
ear
brands on cattle and tobacco in the fields,
something
about labour and the course of dreams,
and
what the love of duty yields.
It
the end, it all comes down
to
rough hands working sun to sun, the life in the land,
and
names free from beggar kingdoms
wrung
out by princes and their kind.
Here,
the forest runs to the horizon,
to
the spine of blue haze we call the Appalachians
and
into the valley of the Cumberland beyond.
A
man can follow the way of his life
yet
never see the end as it all comes down to voices,
speaking
softly under still pines so tall,
your
sure steps falling hushed on moss and nettles.
Time
is nothing if not this.
Where
is that world now?
There’s
hymn enough in voyages
for
those dispirited by the old routine
of
fences strung like cages
for
the keeping-in of beasts and men,
though
barbed wire and meadow grass
take
differently to sun and rain.
And
what of the world we left behind,
what
atlas to assuage that cold geography?
I
was exile then, the bleak North Sea
breaking
sleek as sealskin on the sands,
walking
alone speaking poetry aloud,
myself
to myself, until the words grew distant,
like
words for people in another life.
…
the windy day I saw her…
a
lady from London
riding
bareback in the hills
hard
by those precinct ruins, some fortress family extinct,
her
face so fair, her figure lithe upon her smoky mare:
our
breath rose lazily in the chill
and
for a moment mingled
under
skies of a season
not
quite spring.
And
what is love if not to follow,
to
swear the vow, and kiss the kiss
that
fires the magic in the ring,
and
is this the world, the sign, the spark?
A
sunlit morning in the month of May,
a
Saturday in St. James’s Park,
she
nearby me in the shade
watching
people watching her
feeding
bread crusts to the swans,
the
great black cob and cygnet runts,
beaks
in hand, the lucky ones;
our
flat in Victoria so small
a
shilling in the meter kept us lit and warm,
our
milk outside the window on the cill,
and
love’s refrain at midnight
where
there’s any love at all:
will
you marry me… I will.
By
their simple elegance I know them,
my
children tumbling in their play,
with
features as fair as their mother is fair,
should
I know them in no other way.
And
what will they say of me
when
their children’s children ask—
a
picture of a gentleman from the century past,
the
clothing quaint, the pose uncertain,
the
colours in the background faint?
Leaves
brighten, a book of verse
and
heirloom of the early days:
turning
through the pages there
I
found a filament of grey,
a
human hair, nothing less or more,
yet
there before the windowpane
where
morning played along the strand
poised
brittle on the fulcrum of the light,
I
felt the gulf and bond of ghosts in time,
the
sign of those who never were
and
are again no more.
Where
is that world now?
The
maps have bled to neutral tones,
the
blanks that border in the mind
the
colour of the exile years
remembered
in some future time.
In
the well I lined with stones
the
water clears.
No comments:
Post a Comment