I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
[Joyce Kilmer]
Behold, my child, the Nordic man,
And be as like him, as you can;
His legs are long, his mind is slow,
His hair is lank and made of tow.
And here we have the Alpine Race:
Oh! What a broad and foolish face!
His skin is of a dirty yellow.
He is a most unpleasant fellow.
The most degraded of them all
Mediterranean we call.
His hair is crisp, and even curls,
And he is saucy with the girls.
[Hilaire Belloc]
I
He of flax, of lapis lazuli, coral skin,
Leviathan proportion. Adonis of those
Lancastrian hills, a young god that got
Hold of my imagination, and thus a
Replication in acrylics. I was nothing more
Than a magnolia stretch of canvas. And
Yet your expanse is now only a figment,
A stem, a jewel, a piece of sea debris, an
Unwashed brush, kept within the soft wood
Box, locked and secreted.
II
Only in this are you a constant.
Sevenfold winters pass, each less cold
Than the last. Snow falls so seldom now.
In a glass carriage this time, not you, but
The you imagined. It is to him the seven
Years have been kind. Without actual proof
Of your flesh I know not the truth of age.
For you do not age, but look younger,
Handsomer, flaxen-haired and cobalt-
Eyed. At least my heart can still recognise.
You’re a butterfly in casement, formaldehyde
Child in a bell jar, embalmed Egyptian.
You have been pickled by my subconscious.
You sometimes flash, zoetrope image in
A dream, butterfly net over your elusive
Visage. I know the passage in which this
Carriage sits. That place is as forgotten as
Atlantis. I pass you, unseen, my burnt eye
And rusted-hair, an impurity too ugly
For you to look on. A Romany Czech or
A Slovak, a Polack or a Nordic. I have
Too many countries within me. Thus you
Dissolve, a Nazi boot in the throat as I
Wake up, regurgitating black blood and
Things you once said.
