The Miraculous Beam

Tags

Architect of Universe, board-hewer, carpenter, Christchurch Priory, Dorset, Flambard, Master Quarryman, miracle, Miraculous Beam, mote and beam, Seven Stars, St Catherine's Hill

Brassica heaved a sigh of relief and eased herself into a chair

outside Costamuchamoulah must-seen cafe.

An Indian summer.  Marvellous.  It’s been so pleasant since

the kids went back to school.  It’s been so relaxing.  What did you

get up to over the summer, Candia?  We haven’t had much time to

catch up.

Oh, this and that.  The Husband and I did take a trip to Christchurch

Priory last week.  I’ve been before.  I remembered the Shelley

monument, but I hadn’t been aware of The Miraculous Beam.

What on earth is that?  Brassie enquired.

She put her cup down as I rustled in my handbag.

Oh, no!  Another poem coming, dare I guess?!

I handed it to her across the table.

 

THE MIRACULOUS BEAM

I

Someone was trying to tell us something,

the project manager, Flambard, declared.

When we attempted to lay foundations

at St Catherine’s Hill, the materials

went missing; re-appeared two miles away.

So, we returned to the old Saxon site.

Still the stuff disappeared into thin air.

 

II

Aye, sighed The Master Quarryman, you’ll find

there’s always someone cutting corners;

taking home off-cuts to please his missus,

who wants some extra shelves above her fire;

a new table; rockers for a cradle.

And now the gaffer is going to find out

because the board-hewer claims that the joist

is shorter than it was the night before.

And when we tried to hoist it into place

it didn’t fit the specification.

 

III

The chippie with the enigmatic smile-

always the last to knock off on Fridays,

had worked through his lunch-breaks and took no pay.

When brawls broke out with the apprentices,

he’d mutter something about motes and beams,

continuing to plane with his scarred hands:

a halo of sawdust gilding his head.

He said he’d get his father to help out,

as if something which fell short could be fixed.

 

IV

He set The Seven Stars, he re-joindered.

Pub refurbs are not the same thing, they quipped.

The night is coming when no man can work,

So, talking of pubs, we’re heading there now.

No man builds without calculation.

We’ve heard that one before, the masons laughed.

He drew a circle on the tracing floor.

Who does he think he is? They quaffed their ale.

Perhaps Architect of the Universe?!

Flambard’s coming round tomorrow first thing.

A happy bunny he’s not going to be.

The whole roof could cave in at any time.

Frankly, we could do with a miracle.

V

’Flambard’- you can guess what was his nickname-

gazes up from the ambulatory.

The beam that the builders had rejected

was now integral to the whole building.

We’ve heard of the budding of Aaron’s staff,

but this is something else, the guildsmen laughed.

VI

But the carpenter had made himself scarce

and there was no trace of him to be found,

save for the load-bearing tree in its place

and the print of his sandal on the ground.

 

Ice Bucket Challenge

Tags

barmkin, Better Together, Cunning Little Vixen, First Minister, Flower o' Scotland, Flower O'Scotland, Ice Bucket Challenge, Kelvingrove, mote and beam, Oh Scotland, Pele Tower, Purgatory, Sassenach, Scotland, Scottish Play, Snodland, snowploughing, sporran, Trident, Wee Eck, Wyvern Mote

Murgatroyd and Diana settled down in the barmkin to watch The Debate.

Murgatroyd sensed that there were many diasporan Scots- was that the

same etymological root as ‘sporran‘?- who felt somewhat aggrieved that a

Sassenach such as himself could vote on their country’s future, so he

wanted to be fully informed and astute in his response.  He had tried to

follow some of the arguments on his tablet, but found that he kept

re-playing The First Minister’s Ice Bucket Challenge instead.  He liked it

when Wee Eck said, Dae it again!  No doubt that would be his cry if the

result in September didn’t please him.

Mrs Connolly came in with a tray of salmon sandwiches.  Murgatroyd

felt ashamed that he had ever suspected her good self, or her son, of

theft.  Forced bonhomie led him to ask her how she intended to vote.

Oh, Scotland!  Scotland! she quoted.

Again, Murgatroyd was impressed by the standard of the natives’

education.

..nation miserable

with an untitled tyrant,

when shall you see your wholesome days again?

He thought that this might be from that Flower O’ Scotland song. He

hummed a few bars to show solidarity.

No, Mr Syylk!  It is your own National Bard.  The Scottish Play.

She went on:

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself.  It cannot be called our mother, but our grave;

where nothing is, but who knows nothing..

I didn’t think Alistair did too badly, Murgatroyd remarked, trying to be

impartial and failing.

If that’s the best they can do, Mr Syylk, I intend to emigrate, like past

millions.

Fare thee well!

These evils thou repeatest on thyself

have banished me from Scotland.

Yet my poor country

shall have more vices than it had before,

more suffer and more sundry ways

by him that shall succeed.

Surely not, Mrs Connolly.  Murgatroyd was at a loss to reply to such

moving rhetoric.  Maybe she should have been representing the

‘Better Together‘ campaign at Kelvingrove.

Diana just thanked her and took two generous-sized sandwiches

from the tray. Mad!  All of them.

But, it was only a few weeks since Diana would have thought a barmkin

was some kind of Scottish oatcake.  It was amazing how she had been able

to see Murgatroyd more clearly, the scales having dropped from her

over-prejudicial eyes.  What was all that about motes and beams?  Maybe

her stay in The Tibetan Centre had helped her to move on.

They were going to have a trial reconciliation. (Sonia had said that she

had seen it coming.)  She always said that.

Anyway, it seemed fortuitous that Dru had accompanied Great-Aunt

Augusta back to Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry.  That

meant Nigel was able to give Sonia a lift home in the hired van.  Dru had

decided to leave her harp at the Pele Tower, so there was room for

Sonia’s luggage.  In fact there was plenty of room for a dismantled Trident,

if Alex and Co had wanted to send it down south.

Nigel’s concentration was being hampered by Sonia’s inquisition on his

relationship with Dru.  How could anyone be more intrusive than his own

mother?

Diana and Gus were already back at school, fielding disgruntled parents

and snowploughing their enquiries, to grit the path for the incoming

Headmaster.  The term stretched before them like a path through

Purgatory.

Gus was annoyed as he had been sent a postcard from Wyvern Mote,

from Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe, commenting on the wonderful concert

and praising Dru’s musicianship.  Snod knew, with that unerring classroom

intuition developed over decades, that the missive meant that Dru had

taken him there.  He had seen them, tete-a-tete, during the interval, no

doubt arranging to meet up after Dru had dropped Aunt Augusta back at

the care home.  Musicianship?!  Hah!  Cunning Little Vixen!

Gus did not approve of her having led Nigel on.  His own past

experiences returned to haunt him.  He had seen the look in

Nigel’s eyes as he sang some of the more romantic ballads. Poor

fellow!  His vocal timbre was developing, but his charisma was,

like the proverbial gas, at a peep.

Furthermore, there was an issue which now loomed larger than the

outcome of a referendum: if Dru were to strike up a liaison with

Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe and it should become permanent, then-

Heavens forfend!!-he might end up step-grandfather to that bolshie

Juniper and her odious younger sibling, the biggest bete-noire of St

Birinus’ Middle.

He would like to empty a bucket of something else over that

particular parental head.