SO PRIKETH HEM NATURE IN HIR CORAGES
by donall-dempsey
SO PRIKETH HEM NATURE IN HIR CORAGES
Never did
help my Da enough.
Always
head-stuck-in-a-book.
"Donall son..."he call
"Can you hold this while
...I saw.!"
"Awwww Da!"
I'd wail.
Me lost in Chaucer
and his tale.
And so the saw saws
but all I see is..."Yo!"
"The Miller was a chap of sixteen stone,
A great stout fellow big in brawn and bone.
The saw cuts through the afternoon.
Pauses: then....chaw chaw
Chaucers on again.
"He did well out of them, for he could go
And win the ram at any wrestling show."
"Say what...?
Oh, don't get me
wrong I
adored the aesthetic beauty of
sawdust floating
in a universe of its own
suspended in sunlight and shadow.
The smell of pine
kidnapping my mind.
The green dance of the bubble
in a spirit level.
Didn't have time for all that
hammering and sawing.
I was a boy on a mission
ever since our teacher sighing
"Oh I...don't know why I
teach you scruff Chaucer
...you'll never read the book!"
But by the weekend
( furious at the rebuff )
I( ha ha)HAD!
My poor auld Da
only getting begrudging help.
"Whan that Aprille..."
( the words falling like gentle rain upon my mind )
"...with his shoures soote
the droghte of Marche..."
(Words words oh sweet words. . .)
"hath perced to the roote"
(My mind. . .)
"...bathed every veyne in swich licour,"
(the bubble in the spirit level
poised perfectly...perfectly poised)
"Of which vertu engendred is the flour."