My sincere thanks to Mr Wilbur for so generously commenting on this poem.I’m glad he approved of “silk-stropped” which was sound, rather than meaning-driven. Regarding Mr Wilbur’s comment on “betrayed” this piece of bad grammar was commented on by Alan Sullivan, and AE, if I remember, and perhaps others, and then dropped altogether, on Alan’s advice, for which much thanks. Mr Wilbur, I now realize, did not see the version posted above which was a fourth (by no means final) revision.
Mr Gwynn, thank you for your reading and comment. Again, in fairness to him, I believe Mr Wilbur saw an earlier version and it read as below, with an awkward enjambment, which I failed to see, between lines 4&5 of Stanza 3:
We flick for holy water. Over us,
between the font and door, a statue stands,
this Order’s only saint - from Normandy -
whose picture’s on the wall at home, in her
Carmelite brown and white and holding, as
her statue here does too, a small bouquet
of flowers to her breast. And now I stretch, .
This problem was commented on by Clive Watkins and later by Alan, and Anthony Lombardy, and perhaps others, and Clive suggested a fix which I have used. I am interested you feel the enjambment in the next line is also a problem and will look at this again. Perhaps Mr Wilbur also refers to this, as he says “enjambments in lines 4-5” and not “enjambment between lines 4 & 5”. I would be grateful for any further advice on this.
My thanks, again, to Mr Wilbur, to Tim for choosing this poem for comment by him, to Golias and to all those others, too numerous to mention, who have offered advice on this piece and who have helped me improve it.
Regards,
Oliver.
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