Since it is illegal to post the poetry of members in the Musing on Mastery forum, I’ll post these two grand poems from David Gwilym Anthony’s wonderful little book “Words To Say” here.
These are two of my favorites, and express my own worldview in so many ways.
Buy the book.
Bobby
Bloodlines
They're pictured wearing baubles carved from bone,
woad-daubed and fur-clad, flaunting tribal scars.
Such disrespect - such crude depiction - mars
the memories embedded in the stone
and in my blood, my every chromosome.
Why paint their culture worthless next to ours,
those men who traced the movement of the stars
and built Stonehenge before the birth of Rome?
Their mysteries live on within each cairn
and megalith, though little else remains:
like us they learned what pride and progress cost.
If we could call their spirits to return,
would they stand silent, awed by all our gains –
or stricken, seeing everything we've lost?
Who'll Hold Their Hands?
(on the murder of Jamie Bulger)
Sometimes an image strikes a shocking blow.
I've seen deceit, concealed beneath fake care,
cut like a whip and strip the senses bare.
A bitter man's betraying kiss was so;
or two unruly boys on video -
ignored by passers-by (not their affair) -
who held a toddler's hand and led him where
there are dark truths we do not choose to know.
'Hanging's too good!' 'They don't deserve to live!'
(But whose is the betrayal we recall?)
Did Christ, the friend to thief and fugitive,
greet Judas' kiss with empathy or gall?
They were our sins and so we can't forgive:
Just ten years old! May God forgive us all.
[This message has been edited by Robert E. Jordan (edited September 02, 2004).]
|
Threaded Mode
