Oct 2018
SEQUENCE ONE 1
The revolving year is rolling round towards its end The departing sun sinks down in funerals of fire Shadows already dark with the nothingness of night Drain the last glimmers of light from the dying day.
You come down a deserted Somerset lane, dismal, Dreary, muddy gutters choked with last years’ leaves Hedges bare and wind sighing between the thorns – So this is it then? Well it’s not much I have to say Just a **** in the ground with a corridor in it;
I bend down and squeeze myself into the passage
It’s damp and dark, sticky mud, puddles, cold stones
I shiver, If there were ever spirits here they’ve gone.
What a disappointment! What else was I expecting?
A waste of time. Hardly worth a visit. And yet –
To my surprise I find I can hardly tear myself away
Like going to see a friend and ****** he’s not in
And yet his empty room is his, it’s still full of him;
I am caught, compelled, drawn by I don’t know what -
They mixed up the bones, so the archaeologists say Ceremoniously moving them from chamber to chamber Skulls in one pile, femurs in another, thigh bones, hips - How strange! Involuntarily I shudder – pull yourself Together! Be sensible. And yet why did they do it?
Were they trying to fend off the emptiness of death
With ritual? That final howling black nothing that still
Today lies a cold tombstone hidden in all our hearts?
Or did they come here surprised? Did they see the dancing Spirits with inward Intellectual eyes? Did they pierce Through the veil of earthly sensibles to the bright invisibles?
My imagination escapes me and begins to race and soar Down the corridor we did not take through the door We never opened into the rose garden where the bones Are dancing amongst the roses, hurling and whirling
Hands and feet flying, in a flash in an infinite timeless
Crash of a nano-second skeletons shaking and howling with Laughter, jitterbugging bones leaping about in the bright light, Cavorting and jumping and shouting and yelling and bounding Sockets flying to joints and joints flying to sockets, stamping
And kicking as they rise up from their graves in the bright morning Faster and faster goes the wild dancing rocking and rolling
The shining bones somersaulting supple bending and bowing:
Yet I saw too
That inside time endings are beginnings and opposites meet; They are also sedately dancing to stately slow music
In recurring patterns of grave solemn bliss in their unbounded State of total consciousness, like the prisoners coming out Blinking shily unaccustomed to light in Fidelio,
The music, I note, is that of Beethoven Opus 132, the adagio Thanksgiving to God for recovery from my sickness.
The vision fades, the damp musty smell of earth returns Troubling questions hang like shadows in the dark corners Of the passage grave down the corridor we did not take
To where Mr Eliot’s beautiful lady waits – or does she? –
In that garden we imagined where I saw the spirits dancing Although I only pretended that I did – how can I entertain Such fantasies? And yet I cannot quite shake off the thought In spite of all my rational doubts that this is how it really is.
The revolving year is rolling round towards its end The departing sun sinks down in funerals of fire Shadows already dark with the nothingness of night Drain the last glimmers of light from the dying day.
You come down a deserted Somerset lane, dismal, Dreary, muddy gutters choked with last years’ leaves Hedges bare and wind sighing between the thorns – So this is it then? Well it’s not much I have to say Just a **** in the ground with a corridor in it;
I bend down and squeeze myself into the passage
It’s damp and dark, sticky mud, puddles, cold stones
I shiver, If there were ever spirits here they’ve gone.
What a disappointment! What else was I expecting?
A waste of time. Hardly worth a visit. And yet –
To my surprise I find I can hardly tear myself away
Like going to see a friend and ****** he’s not in
And yet his empty room is his, it’s still full of him;
I am caught, compelled, drawn by I don’t know what -
They mixed up the bones, so the archaeologists say Ceremoniously moving them from chamber to chamber Skulls in one pile, femurs in another, thigh bones, hips - How strange! Involuntarily I shudder – pull yourself Together! Be sensible. And yet why did they do it?
Were they trying to fend off the emptiness of death
With ritual? That final howling black nothing that still
Today lies a cold tombstone hidden in all our hearts?
Or did they come here surprised? Did they see the dancing Spirits with inward Intellectual eyes? Did they pierce Through the veil of earthly sensibles to the bright invisibles?
My imagination escapes me and begins to race and soar Down the corridor we did not take through the door We never opened into the rose garden where the bones Are dancing amongst the roses, hurling and whirling
Hands and feet flying, in a flash in an infinite timeless
Crash of a nano-second skeletons shaking and howling with Laughter, jitterbugging bones leaping about in the bright light, Cavorting and jumping and shouting and yelling and bounding Sockets flying to joints and joints flying to sockets, stamping
And kicking as they rise up from their graves in the bright morning Faster and faster goes the wild dancing rocking and rolling
The shining bones somersaulting supple bending and bowing:
Yet I saw too
That inside time endings are beginnings and opposites meet; They are also sedately dancing to stately slow music
In recurring patterns of grave solemn bliss in their unbounded State of total consciousness, like the prisoners coming out Blinking shily unaccustomed to light in Fidelio,
The music, I note, is that of Beethoven Opus 132, the adagio Thanksgiving to God for recovery from my sickness.
The vision fades, the damp musty smell of earth returns Troubling questions hang like shadows in the dark corners Of the passage grave down the corridor we did not take
To where Mr Eliot’s beautiful lady waits – or does she? –
In that garden we imagined where I saw the spirits dancing Although I only pretended that I did – how can I entertain Such fantasies? And yet I cannot quite shake off the thought In spite of all my rational doubts that this is how it really is.
