How
vast the verdant air seeped to the crux
of
cathedral close, rising innocence
as
Westminster Abbey’s purple incense
catapults
sun into a sky of doves.
They
fluttered, blotting golden light still blush,
and
with their wings they heralded a new
day,
bright with cheer. Yesterday, one or two
stragglers
doubted, casting our crowns for us
into
an abyss of thought and deed. Smoke
rose
as sacred as our naked blue heads
shivering
with cold: would mercy take us
with
pity into her fold? The sword smote
all
fear of the future, thrones in deep reds
were
lit from underneath as they were just.
What
was the reason we came to this place,
alongside
the vast bloodlines, majesty
draping
her fingers in a serene pool
where
grew the remnants of the Queen Anne’s Lace.
I
was picking wildflowers, carrying
them
in my bonnet for the table’s height. . .
a
poem or two were clippings with light
from
an herb garden, fragrance varying
with
words undone, yet casualty, each rhyme
of
price would droop and die with winter’s frost,
and
I could no more keep them there alive
with
a black thumb—I could no more grow thyme
than
give a lark flight—its fledglings in moss,
hidden
within ringed nest, the rain baptised.
I
carried a leather book to write notes,
guarded
for a King and Queen, and yet my
frivolous
scribblings were nothing, yet lies,
compared
to oratorio in throats
of
singers, delineating past lands
of
royalty who would stand here to be
crowned.
Coloured symphonies, tragedians
would
even bow, their feathered hats in hand.
All
humble commoners took note, blissful
to
see a coronation they would stand
for
hours under searing heat, space of cloud,
the
chorus, loud, soft, still mingling,
wistful
with
children running underfoot, and bland
as
inebriated rioting crowd.
It
was time I grew up to my full green
stature,
it was time to write a dark prayer
in
despair at falling translucent tears
on
earth after plague. All governed clear sheen
of
dreams cast light-blue dew on cloak of grass,
society
having lost the cloaks off
their
backs, now hunched with misery at loss
and
fire. The blood of loyalty seeped mass
into
the fray of dust and fear. Now hear,
listen
to my soft-spoken words of glass . . .
For
a time we will enter reunion
with
life in the midst of hell. Now, my dear,
don’t
tell me you don’t wish for latent tasks
to
keep busy, that good days were common.
For
a time we are once more nightmare-free,
our
chained slavery, blinded, as a god
we
pay futile homage to in a mob,
we
served without Justice or Liberty.
For
long hours the afternoon sun slanted
tall
windows, noisy, the street beneath me;
I
poured through Emerson, Whitman, and Keats.
There
was, like water trickling grey, blunted
from
a stone, with deep cooling poignant verse—
the
realms of cobalt-pure revelation
in
visitation austere, and languid
eyes
of a Madonna: her cupped hands, purse
in
every gold realm, variation
of
plenty, and the earth now turning sanguine.
I
stopped in vile terror of a leader
so
resplendent that the sage sea married
the
shore, the corpse of life now ferried
with
the wave of time in blue-black meter,
in
salt crashing into its rocky crags,
with
an aggressive tumult at life’s end,
without
much hope left to entirely mend.
Yet
we would array in vast red parade
the
plush side of a splashed pomegranate
hiding
beneath a spray of leaf entwined
where
sky meets tree, and all fruit breathes in stealth.
The
silver bowl now holds its pale manna
as
life drains the juice of country supine,
archaic,
old blue blood of Commonwealth.
Stay
here, while I sing you one last lullay,
country
of many countries that in one
dying
moment forgot what made its song
live.
The Commonwealth sang its lullaby
in
dependable rhythm, its nature rung
to
princes under its prism-withered eaves
bound-laid
beneath its browning lifeless leaves.
Oh,
forgotten me and my mother-song
of
hovering spirit and milk-white breast,
promised
land, honey hospitality.
Breathing
iridescent through the curtains
hung
with lace against the neck of time, rest
here
for a glass of timid lime, cold tea,
bubbling
to surfaces of castle earth.
Emily Isaacson
