Manners Makyth Man

Tags

assessment objectives, Blue Badge Guide, Camelot, Clueless, Colin Firth, Dr Johnson, Elinor Dashwood, feretory, Harriet Smith, Jane Austen, Keats, Lady Bertram, Mary Tudor, Occam's razor, Ockham's Razor, Ode to Autumn, ossuaries, Philip of Spain, St Cross, Winchester Cathedral, Wykeham Arms

The third and possibly penultimate excerpt from Jane Austen’s musings from beneath the floor of Winchester Cathedral.

Today an insolent hussy stood on my stone and shrieked to her companion:

Wow!  Get a load of this!  We are standing on that woman whose book we had to read for GCSE.  Except that our teacher just let us watch the DVD.  We had to compare it with “Clueless”, to show evidence of certain assessment objectives, but I got mixed up and was marked down.  It was the teacher’s fault.  She shouldn’t have confused me. My mum appealed, though, and I re-wrote that bit where Mr Thingy exits the lake in a wet t-shirt.  Mum said it was really cool.  Later she came here to give thanks for my success and slipped in a couple of prayer requests to The God of Camelot and a personal one that she might meet Colin Firth, with or without his wet clothing.

All of this was expressed in spite of a metal contraption which was attached to her teeth, so that I was as showered with saliva drops and my stone wetted, as if the Bishop had sprayed me with the rosemary twigs he uses at baptisms.  It isn’t always the best spot here, near the font.

But, at least we haven’t sunk to those adult total immersions yet.

Then the young woman proceeded to light a candle for me, muttering about there being no vanilla or blueberry-scented ones available.

Before I could utter the immortal phrase: It is a truth universally.. she was off, determined to see the feretory, as she loved those furry little creatures- or were they meerkats?  Simples is not the word.

Sometimes I raise my eyes to the metal hooks on the vasty pillars whose original function was to display the nuptial banners of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain.  Since I cannot suspend myself thereby, I resort to turning over in my grave.  Someone should remind these youngsters of the motto of their local college:  Manners Makyth Man.  (And that is a generic, inclusive term.)

I try not to mind when tourists seem more interested in where Keats precisely commenced his walk to St Cross, before composing Ode to Autumn. 

I could easily interrupt the Blue Badge Guide and inform them that he first procured nuncheon and a pint of porter at The Wykeham Arms.  However, like my creation, Elinor Dashwood, I feel like commenting on his Romantic versification:

It is not everyone who shares your passion for dead leaves!

But, maybe this is somewhat scathing, even for me.

I still feel that a sermon well delivered is as rare as hens’ teeth.  The Evangelical varieties seem livelier, though hardly calculated to earn their exponents a succession to a stall in Westminster.

Some of the homilies could do with a firm shave by the venerable Occam’s razor, since they can be as mangled as the regal bones in the choir ossuaries and as dusty as the said receptacles themselves.  They might do well to remember the less intellectually endowed Harriet Smiths of this world, who do not always decipher obscure riddles and charades.  As Fielding said, however:

Clergy are men as well as other folks.

Personally, I have been able to touch and affect a heterogeneous audience and consequently often have more than half a mind to rise and preach myself, though I heed Dr Johnson’s astute aphorisms regarding the fairer sex and sermonising:

A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs.  It is not done well: but you are surprised to find it done at all.

I know that I can be eloquent on points in which my own conduct would have borne ill examination.  However, greater opportunity for inward reflection has led me to direct more of my sense of irony towards my own failings.  As the good doctor also said:

As I know more of mankind, I expect less and less of them and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

However, I who have gently mocked the aspirations of others have been glad to be sheltered in the bosom of this place, as comfortably as Lady Bertram’s pug upon her chaise, but- prenez soin!  I am sometimes yet inclined to bare my needle sharp teeth and to sink them into some unsuspecting ankles- metaphorically, of course!

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Cathedral Whispers

Tags

agapanthus, Alan Bennett, Alan Tichmarsh, Alethea, bidding prayers, Catherine Morland, designer handbags, Eastleigh, Echinacea, Glucosamine, Lady Catherine de Burgh, Sandbanks, St Cross, Talking Heads, Venus Fly Traps, Winchester Cathedral

(A continuation of our previous musings on Jane Austen’s eavesdroppings culled from her position beneath the floor of Winchester Cathedral.)

There have been seasonal floral displays in various churches in the Hampshire region, including St Cross, over the years.  The last word on flower arranging was probably given by Alan Bennett in his Talking Heads 1 monologue Bed Among the Lentils, about Mrs Shrubsole and the precise placement of a fir cone in her floral arrangement, Forest Murmurs.

Nevertheless I can imagine Jane Austen tuning into covert cathedral discussions being conducted, though masked by arrangements of Venus Fly Traps and burgeoning bocage.

Flower Arranger 1:

I daresay floral occupations are always desirable in girls of your girth, as a means of affording you fresh air and more exercise than you would normally take.  A passion for agapanthus may be deemed somewhat amateurish, but Alan Tichmarsh may yet attend and then, who can tell where your newfound skills may lead?

Arranger 2:

Ah Pansy, you enquired as to when my grand passion first surfaced, so to speak.  It developed gradually, but particularly after my first visit to my paramour’s enormous estate in Eastleigh. 

Pansy :

Unfortunate that the more vulgar might rhyme, or connote that once verdant lea with “beastly.”

Arranger 2:

Ita vero.  Sadly, he is a fit and extremely healthy older man, notwithstanding his vast cache of stocks and shares and general lack of penetration.  I could endeavour to live with him, however minimal his funds, providing that I should have access to them all.  I would aspire to Winchester, but  a villa in Sandbanks would, of course, be preferable and might prove an initial rung on the property ladder.

Arranger 1: Indeed, it would be wrong to marry for money, but foolhardy to marry without it.

Jane Austen:

How I would love to expose those furtive rummagers in designer handbags who rapidly switch off their mobiles before the bidding prayers, lest their lovers interrupt their devotions, or who use their fumbling as an avoidance technique when the offertory bags circulate.

At some of the local school services, one often hears some young prodigy, called Alethea or otherwise, make a smug, sententious remark to her doting mater. Through over-attention, the chit’s natural self-confidence has been honed into haughty assurance.  Catherine Morland’s conviction still stands -ie/ that there is a violent and uncertain life which lurks beneath the veneer  of society.

I am constantly privy to rehearsals of the accomplishments and marvels of female students, who all play musical instruments, achieve A*s and who compete in equine sports at the highest level.  Yet, I have never heard a young lady spoken of, for the first time, without her being lauded to the Empyrean.  Yet, deficiency of nature is often little assisted by education or society.  A greater influence seems to be perpetrated by the expectation of property, usually acquired through trade, or, dare I suggest, a lottery ticket.

Nowadays, such nouveaux positively display themselves in society magazines, besporting themselves at various charitable functions of questionable taste.  Their double-barrelled nomenclatures can scarcely be fitted into the copy without a prodigious profligacy of paper and ink.

Self-appointed, knowledgeable women offer their medical knowledge to others, whether invited to declaim, or not.  They remind me of Lady Catherine de Burgh, when she held forth:

Ah, yes, my experience of the lifelong care of my valetudinarian husband has led me to recommend Echinacea during the winter months and Glucosamine throughout the year.

Their nerves command a high respect, as they have evidently been old friends with whom they have been intimately acquainted for a number of years.  Truly these are women whom one cannot regard with too much deference.

And so we must leave Jane at the moment as she is a little fatigued by this peroration , but she promises to continue to amuse us on the morrow.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

She Being Dead Yet Speaketh

Tags

Alcuin, Alexander Pope, Anthony Gormley, campanology, Cassandra Austen, cathedral Close, Chawton, global warning, Great expectations, Harris Bigg- Wither, Henry Tilney, Izaak Walton, Jane Austen, St Swithun, Winchester Cathedral

An old series which may re-pay another airing:

 As the most famous Hampshire novelist remarked: We can all go through the somewhat embarrassing motions of offering each other the Peace for a few moments at Sunday Eucharist, but it is keeping it throughout the week that is the true challenge.

 Whenever I am in Winchester Cathedral, I am conscious that the Blessed Jane lies beneath our feet.  I mean, of course, Jane Austen and it is significant that she was not praised for her literary talents on her ledger stone, but rather lauded for her virtue.

 

 

 

Occasionally I fantasise that she is eavesdropping on snippets and gobbets of conversation that are echoes of those which formed the foundation to her writing at Chawton, where, in a more constrained square meterage, she still found plenty of grist to her mill.

The types still exist with their universal foibles and characteristics and you could deem her to have an excellent position from which to amass fragments for her personal notebook.  Her neighbours are interesting too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Jane’s internment took place early in the morning, perhaps to avoid comment from the faithful on the rectitude of a resting place having been given to one whose relation had been imprisoned for petty theft and whose cousin’s husband had been guillotined.

I wonder what our novelist would have made of discussions on women bishops and gay marriage?

Would she still count eighty seven women passing by, without there being a tolerable physiognomy among them?

(Some people are worth seeing, but not worth going to see.)

However, as stated, she does not have to move at all. To be the unseen guest at baptisms, ordinations, weddings and confirmations must delight her.  Even those alliances which are the triumphs of hope over experience must provide entertainment enough for any spinster.  The voice of the people is the voice of God, said Alcuin – vox populi vox dei.

Being witness to so many unions, does she ever regret turning down Harris Bigg- Wither?  Nay, she was delighted to have spared herself any lifelong conjunction with that particular large and awkward youth.  Whenever she had experienced a broken engagement, failed seaside romance or unsatisfactory flirtation, she consoled herself in her sister’s company and they shared a game of rubbers, or played a few duets.  Next to being married, a girl liked to be disappointed in love a little, now and then.  It gave one a sort of distinction among friends and one’s mother an opportunity to remedy the situation.

When a baby grizzles during the Intercessions, does it irritate her?  No, not at all, for Jane was the seventh child of eight and loved boisterous games of baseball and cricket.  She does not mind the troops of schoolchildren, brandishing clipboards with attached worksheets on Global Warning and St Swithun, who mark their territory by expelling curious deposits of masticated material on the ancient stones.

She is amused when itinerant latter-day pilgrims are riveted to the spot. Teacher:  Well done, Merlot!  Now that you have ticked all the boxes we can enter you for the Win a Cathedral Roof Tour on a Windy Day prize draw.

Rinaldo, why don’t you go down to the crypt and see if you can spot the virtualangel? Don’t hurry back.  Have a little paddle. That was quick!  No, that wasn’t the angel.  It was the sculpture by Anthony Gormless.

No, children do not bother her, but she is disturbed and aggrieved by members of the congregation who show no discretion in the timing of their personal coughs and who would be ideal members of the cast of some stage representation of Great Expectorations. Perhaps they could be induced to retire to the Fisherman’s Chapel to meditate on the Izaak Walton stained glass injunction contained therein, whose vitrine injunction is:  Study to be Quiet.

A restoration appeal for £19 million was launched and so Jane hopes that the ancient roof will no longer threaten to tumble around her ears from the vibrations of deaf loops, microphones, county brayings and excessive campanology.

Her single regret may be that she misses her dear sister’s company. As Mrs Austen once said to her: If Cassie were to have her head cut off, you would insist on joining her. And Jane’s father often quoted Pope: The proper study of mankind is Man.

So, here she is dignified with as much learning in the University of Life as her brothers experienced in their various careers.  Persuasion, pride, prejudice, sense and sensibility are paraded over these flagstones every day, in as compressed a social milieu as any novelist could desire to inhabit.

Henry Tilney once observed: The Close is surrounded by a neighbourhoodof voluntary spies.

Certainly, Jane would have avowed that its grapevine is as efficient a system of instant gratification as the pew sheet or Internet, whatever that organ of gossip may be.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

 

News From Nowhere

Tags

chloral, Cotswolds, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Guinevere, hollyhocks, Janey Morris, Julia Margaret Cameron, Kelmscott, La Belle Iseult, Lancelot, mille-fleurs, shape-changers, Topsy, William Morris

(The Parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere

by Julia Margaret Cameron)

 

Since I live in the vicinity of Kelmscott now, here is an

old poem, re-blogged…

 

William:

I raised a latch of a door in the wall

and immediately knew this was home.

The garden’s rosy superabundance

was a mille-fleurs embroidery stitching

raucous cawing of rooks from those high elms, the

swifts wheeling, doves’ cooing and blackbird song.

A mulberry tree was central. Pastel

hollyhocks nodded their welcome and men

scythed reeds and floated them down the river

under the willow trees’ gray-green flickers.

Lead waterspouts were limply supported

from the mellow masonry and woodworm

pricked the panelling. I felt not sadness,

but a beauty born of melancholy.

Leaving my charcoal overcoat downstairs,

I inspected the quaint garrets where once

tillers and herdsmen slept under the eaves.

The sloping floorboards creaked under my feet.

I realised she had never loved me.

How could she? Women are all shape-changers.

This house is an E with its tongue cut out,

so it will never prattle its scandal.

Betrayal’s woven in its tapestries:

Samson with his eyes gouged out for his love.

Please, dear Janey, be happy…I cannot

paint you, but I love you – and now leave you.

Janey:

Some called it amitie amoureuse.

They dubbed me Guenevere, La Belle Iseult.

Once in this lost riverland, out of depth,

we drowned in our adulterous passion.

I heard carriages arriving at night,

so the cob’s harsh hooves had to be silenced

by leather shoes. I had no energy

when William was here, but took long walks

with Gabriel, who said our leaky punt

was not a poetic locomotion.

I keep my thoughts locked in my casket

in my bedroom. It was kind of Topsy

to bring me back that fine Icelandic smock.

Gabriel said it served his purposes well.

When they had Mouse the babes were not tiresome,

but Jenny’s impairment grows every day.

Tomorrow someone must trim the dragon.

In the studio I hear faint crying

over a stillborn child. He took chloral,

alcohol and would stay awake till five.

What was I to do with his exhumed verse?

Sir Lancelot had welded us as one.

I suppose I never loved him at all.

Tonight I left a pansy in Blunt’s room.

I am past sobbing that he does not come.

The Burning Bush

Tags

acacia, Adonai, auto-combustion, boscage, Brexit, burning bush, Church Green, Cotswolds, Crateagus, David Cameron Witney, Desolation, Dieric Bouts, hawthorn, Highgrove, I Am Who I Am, Israelites, kohl, Michael Portillo, Midian, Milton, Mindfulness, Moses, pastures new, pillar of fire, Prince Charles, Renaissance Man, SamCam, sestina, Shekinah, Sir Philip Sidney, smoking flax, St Catherine's Monastery, St George and Dragon Dragon Hill, U A Fanthorpe, UKIP, Waitrose

 

Dear Brassica,

Hope you are not inundated in the South.  Read about all the flooding,

power cuts and trees coming down.

Yes, I like being in The Cotswolds.  Might bump into David

Cameron in Waitrose at Witney.  Recognised Church Green the other

day as his backdrop, when he was telling the world that he was giving

up as an MP.

Remembered the shock (some years ago) of seeing a photo in The

Financial Times of Michael Portillo, posing on the bridge at the end of

my garden in Suttonford.  I think he must have been visiting his

associate, George, who lived nearby.

Well, I needn’t fret: I am evidently still at the centre of global events.

Mind you, sometimes taking early retirement and leaving your old pals

for pastures new (ghastly euphemism pinched and abused from Milton,

who employed it freshly) can be a bit daunting.  That’s why it was

wonderful to come across a veritable burning bush of hawthorn berries

above Dragon Hill – you know, where St George allegedly slew the dragon.

I kept thinking of U. A. Fanthorpe and her witty, GCSE anthology-

endorsed poem on that subject.

I was compelled to approach this crimson phenomenon as it was so

vibrant and it reminded me of Moses and his encounter with verbal,

auto-combustible branches of boscage.

I wondered what it might say to me and checked on the original tale.

So, Moses was over 40 years old and no longer a bigwig.  Instead he was

caring for his father-in-law’s sheep, which did not exactly utilise his

expensive Midian education.  (I suppose he might have been having a

crisis, like David Cameron after loss of power.  But I don’t think SamCam

would like Dave taking to pastoral studies unless she got a discount on

wool for her new fashion line.)

I wonder if Moses’ wife still wore her kohl in the backside of the desert?

Or had she already been yummy-mummified by then?

However, the encouraging thing is that, in a moment of paying

attention – I’m not going to say ‘mindfulness‘ – Moses was called to

a new commission, namely to be leader of the Israelites, as they were

to be delivered from slavery.

So, Brassie, what do you think I did?

No, I didn’t apply for leadership of UKIP, or any other party,

hoping to take my people through the wasteland of Brexit…

No, I wrote another sestina on the epiphanal moment when I

realised that I am not past it.  I mean, I knew it, but I had not felt it

in recent days.

My friends who were staying with me had just been to Highgrove,

where it has been suggested Prince Charles talks to plants, so people

may accept, that, in a way, a bush spoke to me yesterday. and said

something like, Fool, look in thy heart and write!

(Okay, so I know I am appropriating Philip Sidney, but it was a poetic

moment and who better to prompt you to get on and do something with

your life than the original Renaissance Man?)

It was in the news yesterday that trees communicate with one another

and, in Fanthorpe’s poem, the dragon speaks, so, suspend your disbelief,

dear Brassie.

Here’s the poem inspired by a communicative Crataegus, namely the

humble hawthorn, except that it was an acacia in the case of Moses

and they have the original (they allege) at St Catherine’s Monastery:

 

The Burning Bush Speaks

So, how was I to get his attention?

Ah yes, an acacia bush on fire-

though plenty self-ignite and are destroyed,

he’ll notice that I actually sustain

and it is not consumed.  Thus I will speak:

that ought to alert him to my presence.

 

He feels that he no longer has presence.

The world has ceased to pay him attention

as he minds in-laws’ sheep, over a fire

on Desolation Mountain, so to speak.

It’s not an activity to sustain

a man’s confidence, which has been destroyed.

 

A Midian education, doubt-destroyed;

his eyes blinded to Shekinah presence-

he has to be convinced that I sustain.

He is not paying me due attention;

the smoking flax is no longer on fire.

Moses!  Can he believe a bush will speak?

 

He cautiously approaches tongues of fire.

Confidence that had been all but destroyed

re-ignites, as I re-assure him, speak

my name:  I Am Who I Am  (The Presence)

and creator of all hope.  I sustain

 

the universe.  The Egyptians I sustain.

The Israelites I will refine with fire

and, in order to gain his attention,

I’ll speak to him from something not destroyed

by elemental powers.  My presence

is going to give him confidence to speak.

 

I have a message; words for him to speak

and laws which I will give him to sustain

my people.  He will convey my presence;

cause them to follow my pillar of fire;

ensure that other gods are all destroyed.

Now, Moses, I need your full attention:

 

Speak! For the Egyptians will be destroyed.

Sustain your attention.  Heed my presence.

The fire of Adonai will burn in you.

 

(Image: Dieric Bouts)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fishing For Compliments

Tags

chat-up line, fishing flies, Izaak Walton

Inspired by the phrase : ‘A Chat- Up Line’

With apologies to Izaak Walton…

 

Some Booby Nymphs met two Woolly Buggers,

who threw out some Gold Nugget lures to them,

thinking they were Pale Evening Emergers,

ready for the Down ‘n Dirty Fiery.

Hey, Damsel Wiggle Nymphs! Rise to our bait!

Black Suspender Nymphs-you with the Pearl Butts!

 

But the Kick Ass damsels merely replied:

You think you are Irresistible Adams;

we are not interested in tackle.

We are not attracted by Double Humpy.

We don’t want to get into Deep Water

and especially not with Green-Arsed Wickhams.

Rat-faced McDougal there could lose Half Stone.

He wouldn’t know a Sofa Pillow from

his Tup’s Indispensible and talks Tosh.

I’d clearly prefer a Green Highlander

to a Flash Charlie with a Zonker.

You haven’t got a Grey Ghost of a Chance.

My boyfriend ain’t no Leckford Professor

but you are a Moose Turd compared to him.

I’m a Redhead Buzzer and my pal here

will confirm that I am called Red Diva,

so there’s no use in saying, Baby Doll,

do you fancy a Whisky then in Bradford?

You are out of your depth- we’re World Class Flies.

 

But the Spin Doctor, full of Blue Charm, said:

No, I’d have to be on Chartreuse Poppers

to take on a Little Devil like you.

My mate here is a Black Bullet Conehead,

so you’d better shut your Grizzly Hot Lips.

You might be a Beaded Belly temptress,

but, up close, I see you are wearing Spandex.

I will get my Missionary elsewhere

and doubtless before Moonlight Shadows fall.

 

Good luck, Dirty Egg-Sucking Dogs!

Cast off!  We don’t need no Psycho Princes!

 

 

 

 

Chalk Hill Blues

Tags

Chalk Hill Blues, Compton Down, damselflies, dongas, dragonflies, fritillaries, plague, St Catherine's Hill, Venetian glass, William Rufus

 

An old one, but worth a re-run maybe?

(Male Chalk Hill Blue, photographed on 2/8/008

by Rosenzweig)

CHALK HILL BLUES

Fine dongas’ etched capillaries

trace downs in criss-cross engravature.

In pure air, flimsy with fritillaries,

Chalk Hill Blues, by divine imprimatur,

caper.  Deft dragonflies, volts from the blue:

thoraxes like mottled Venetian glass,

hover, with pink damselflies, over dew-

dipped vegetation.  Those who would pass

by to reach St Catherine’s coronet (beech

circle)- Iron Age travellers, or those

who buried their plague victims- did not breach

Nature’s contract; nor did those who opposed

that livid, open wound, scarring the cant,

observable from Compton Down.  This way,

once pilgrim path, in earshot of thin chant

from cloisters, now roars, a snarling highway,

bar of shame on history’s escutcheon.

Rufus’ cartwheels no longer rut clay;

but his blood badges the route to destruction.

 

(Death of William Rufus by Neuville)

Horological Heartbreak

Tags

automaton, bezel, clappers, escapement, fecit, fusee, Horology, hunter watches, long case, Tempus Fugit, Thursday disease

An old one, somewhat overlooked:

 (Longcase clock. Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai

11/7/15  Image by AKS.9955)

 

 

The alarm rang.  I finally awoke.

He who had admired my hourglass figure

could never analyse what made me tick;

was unsympathetic to my moon phase.

(His mood swings were like a pendulum.)

Sometimes he seemed like an automaton.

At other times he would look raised daggers.

Yet people seemed to bracket us together.

My best friend thought he was rather striking.

But I felt he was winding me up-

like when he told me he had a pierced cock.

Although he had an open face, duplex

movements were second nature to him.

Now he’s not the mainspring of my life

any more.  We’d got into a bezel.

Tempus fugit… It had been a long case;

it was time someone regulated things.

My lack of self-esteem was weight-driven.

He was pushing me nearer to the verge.

I was getting Thursday disease all week,

waiting for him to dial; seeking a crutch.

I should have seen that he was the loser.

Inevitably I blew my fusee.

Mother said a man should be the hunter

and a girl’s best friend would be her jewels,

but I preferred to make my escapement

before my life was utterly screwed up.

Ultimately I ran like the clappers

to avoid horological heartbreak:

Now I don’t have fecit written on me.

 

(Thursday disease- gradual loss of precision in timekeeping as

clocks usually wound on a Sunday.)

Pay Back Time

Tags

Barrier Reef, cast bread on waters, Job, maquillage, nuclear waste, patience, pay back time, phantm pain, Sea of Forgetfulness, Thomas, vengeance

Another sestina- I just love the form!

(Job by Bonnat)

 

PAY BACK TIME

 

Vengeance is mine; I will repay,

says the Lord.  But I don’t want revenge.

Maybe I did, at first, before I could forbear.

I wanted something – justice?  Oh, to heal

took a lifetime of rejecting phantom pain,

after harsh amputation.  So, patience

 

was prescribed.  Job showed requisite patience,

but could mere multiplication repay?

Would extra flocks and wives reduce his pain?

I’ve heard it said the best revenge

is not to let the bastards get you down.  Heal

yourself, physician!  If you can, forbear.

 

Somehow that is deemed a triumph.  To forbear

may achieve the moral high ground.  Patience

can get you nowhere, but you might just heal

and maquillage might mask the scars.  Repay?

Energy is depleted by revenge

and you need energy to cope with pain.

 

And what about the one who caused the pain?

You track their life’s ‘success’; try to forbear;

you learn to compartmentalise revenge,

like nuclear waste, sunk beneath fathoms of patience.

You trust there are no leaks.  To repay

is not to incarnadine oceans.  To heal

 

 

 

 

is to let the waves lave you; tides to heal:

the salt stings, crystalises initial pain.

There is a sea called Forgetfulness.  Repay?

Cast your stale bread on the waters; forbear

and each minute accretion of patience

will erect a barrier reef to revenge.

 

Life’s rips then seem like crude revenge;

undertows from past strandings.  But as we heal,

we tear down obelisks to our patience.

We feel no need to inflict, nor nourish pain.

The wounds of Christ teach us to forebear.

His private display was not to repay

 

Thomas.  Patience with that disciple’s pain

showed He could forebear with doubt: no revenge

repaid human weakness.  He chose to heal.