A fountain bubbled dreamily.
Rose and descended endlessly
Then higher still, a tiled cartoon
Of Moore Street shawlies. Just across
Tinkled a mezzanine café
And, further up again, there was
A mirrored ceiling. All the way
Above that ceiling, Space Age-style
Glass lifts took shoppers up to see
The streets below. My juvenile
Soul swooned in quiet ecstasy.
One year they put some banners up
With lines from Wordsworth's "Daffodils"
I guessed this was the FA Cup
Of poetry; the Orson Welles,
The Sergeant Pepper, Everest,
The Parthenon, all that could boast
Of being best, the very best,
The poem the whole world loved the most.
I was a Stars Wars baby with
Strange knowledge of things long ago
Things all but lost, like sunken myth,
From long before the Late Late Show.
Optimus Prime and Patrick Pearse
Looked over me from infancy
Queen and Iron Maiden filled my ears
Arcadia my memory.
With lines from Wordsworth's "Daffodils"
I guessed this was the FA Cup
Of poetry; the Orson Welles,
The Sergeant Pepper, Everest,
The Parthenon, all that could boast
Of being best, the very best,
The poem the whole world loved the most.
I was a Stars Wars baby with
Strange knowledge of things long ago
Things all but lost, like sunken myth,
From long before the Late Late Show.
Optimus Prime and Patrick Pearse
Looked over me from infancy
Queen and Iron Maiden filled my ears
Arcadia my memory.
My innocence was ten miles deep
To think the world loved poetry
Enough to care that much. The creep
Of time-thieving technology
Had choked us less, and Ireland still
Trailed clouds of glory from its birth
(Since grand ideals take time to kill
And dreamers to be thrown to earth)
But even thirty years ago
The gig was up, and Pegasus
Was saddled tight and kept to show
The kids around the syllabus.
Must shopping centres kill the soul?
Can daffodils sustain the heart
At second-hand? Does time unroll
Away from nature and from art
Unstoppably? Or did I snatch
A glimpse of something possible?
Some promise that the soul can catch
(Even in suburbs, even still)
The light that never was on sea
Or land, or blue remembered hills?
Is there a place for poetry
So far from daffodils?
To think the world loved poetry
Enough to care that much. The creep
Of time-thieving technology
Had choked us less, and Ireland still
Trailed clouds of glory from its birth
(Since grand ideals take time to kill
And dreamers to be thrown to earth)
But even thirty years ago
The gig was up, and Pegasus
Was saddled tight and kept to show
The kids around the syllabus.
Must shopping centres kill the soul?
Can daffodils sustain the heart
At second-hand? Does time unroll
Away from nature and from art
Unstoppably? Or did I snatch
A glimpse of something possible?
Some promise that the soul can catch
(Even in suburbs, even still)
The light that never was on sea
Or land, or blue remembered hills?
Is there a place for poetry
So far from daffodils?
No comments:
Post a Comment