The Wabi-Sabi of Tintern Abbey
Things bloom more beautiful when breaking down.
The nave now ploughs through foams of flowering trees,
a frozen caravel. Kissed by the breeze,
the river surface suddenly seems to frown
exquisitely. The apse’s jaunty crown
of weeds above one (sightless) eye would please
romantic poets. What was once a friese
lies strewn about, a shaley shanty-town.
We love whatever withers, atrophies.
To see a calked construction founder, drown
beneath its own detritus, by degrees
slough off its shape and, sinking to its knees,
expire, is satisfying. Velvet gown?
We’d much prefer to see a soiled chemise.
A lake? A cloud? A mountain? Megan Fox?
If we acknowledge Beauty in these things,
what are we saying? As when Smokey sings,
or girls emerge in slinky summer frocks,
something’s taking place outside the box
of regularity, and sprouting wings.
How might we classify these happenings?
A rupture in the norm? The whole Baroque’s
built on this very point. If Beauty rocks,
what is the special quality it brings,
and why is it so pleasing? Beauty flings
a spanner in the works of Orthodox,
and laughs at Workaday. It mocks
our essence, lurks in quirks, and smirks at clocks.
“The Wordsworth ouevre is cretinous. Discuss.”
The Long, Laborious Quest, The Sparrow’s Nest,
The Noble Oak of Guernica, Addressed –
We can’t escape the feeling he’s a wuss.
His subjects are unconscionable, plus
the rhymes he uses are a facilefest.
If only he were even half in jest!
His humour’s unintentional, and thus
more entertaining than he could have guessed.
Yet something in his scribblings seems to wrest
significance from dross, analogous
to Newton’s differential calculus,
invented by the by, at whim’s behest.
When Wordsworth falls apart, he’s at his best.
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