Sunday, August 23, 2009

Lucy's Bible

Lucy’s Bible

Carefully she writes her name
Here in the printed space
Copperplate, pen dipping in inkwell
Tongue held between her teeth
And the date, 1906
For this is her Bible, precious
Willed to her, Morebath Parish girl
Three centuries before, with conditions:
Seven psalms to be learned
And does she ever, Lucy, take those psalms to heart
And, forward a decade tumultuous,
Does she rehearse them, recite them
For comfort in her darkest hour
World at war, nadir
Lifting her soul to the lord
Praying for safe return
For a life and love together
For three lives yet to come
Children, now unto the fourth generation
When the child of another time
Bequeathed a fraction, sweet dividing
Of Lucy’s lovely self
Opens the Bible and, reading, dreams
A dream of other times
And faces gone
Of life and love together
And dear lives yet to come

23rd August Hounoux, for Frances, the Dusk Swimmer, who gave me just enough time


2 comments:

  1. Oh that lovely recurring theme, the past's hues colouring the present!

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  2. It is indeed a recurring theme for me, isn't it Jenny. It is inevitable I suppose with my house and life so full of grown children and their children, and I know I think a lot about genes and the way they are manifested down the generations. I hadn't thought until you worded it so beautifully, about the way the hues of the past do colour the present, but that is what happens isn't it. The whole matter of Time and how it truly isn't experienced by us in a linear manner is what preoccupies me I think. As too in your lovely poem Granny's Apples. Past/present/future which can never be known. Strange what you learn about yourself and about your attitudes and beliefs, when writing poetry.....

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