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Poem

I think I can remember, maybe dreamed, 
a bright green field one handsome summer day, 
the Duke's blue tent resplendent with its flags, 
his drummers practising for Festival, 
a sense of things to come - that's happiness - 
a chimera you're certain you deserve, 
but, like the Jews in their Messiah-vigil, 
you wait until the waiting rots your bones, 
and in your heart concede it's not for you. 
I don't see life as hopeless - goodness, no. 
It's possible to wade through misery, 
to cross, and clamber out the other side. 
And work will help you do it. I don't love 
my work. But I have reached accommodation. 
A labourer is what I happen to be, 
a cobbler, sir. A brandisher of tools. 
The habit of work bestows dexterity, 
an easy, nerveless knack of hand and eye, 
but it takes back. I'm not so steady now. 
I do not relish ladders. Spandrel work, 
above head height, with cold paint dripping down, 
is horror for an old man's finger joints. 
I cover this blind wall with squares of meaning, 
and - in my little way - I've changed the world. 
I've taken a recalcitrant universe, 
and branded it with purpose. My threefold 
accomplishments are here before your eyes - 
I overlap the figures, so, for depth, 
the satisfying quadrilaterals, 
the bloom I give to human flesh. Yes, these. 
But these themselves are far from unheroic. 
Encountering nothingness, I've used it up, 
and spent it. These, my children, will survive 
me. Ah, the plaster's ready. It won't wait. 
I'll use the daylight that remains to me, 
sir, by your leave, for these December days 
allow no tarrying. Thanks for your pains. 
So, look about below! One coming down.

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