musings of an itinerant lover

A couple years ago I received a phone call while I was driving in Santa Fe from a friend who had just read D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Under The Oak” and felt a sudden and irresistible urge to share it with me.  I’d actually never read the poem before and it really pierced me.  Surely my well-meaning friend had no idea that my driving under the influence of art was reckless at best.

Under the Oak

You, if you were sensible,
When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful,
You would not turn and answer me
“The night is wonderful.”

Even you, if you knew
How this darkness soaks me through and through, and infuses
Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to distinguish
What hurts, from what amuses.

For I tell you
Beneath this powerful tree, my whole soul’s fluid
Oozes away from me as a sacrifice steam
At the knife of a Druid.

Again I tell you, I bleed, I am bound with withies,
My life runs out.
I tell you my blood runs out on the floor of this oak,
Gout upon gout.

Above me springs the blood-born mistletoe
In the shady smoke.
But who are you, twittering to and fro
Beneath the oak?

What thing better are you, what worse?
What have you to do with the mysteries
Of this ancient place, of my ancient curse?
What place have you in my histories?

———


Compounding my recklessness was my own sudden and irresistible urge to respond.  I got home burst through the door, fired up my computer and this was one of those times when the following poem simply wrote itself.


———


Wanjugu

The place I hold, you know it well
For I need not to cast the spell
That will alleve the story’s pain
That suffering beg to cease again

The place I hold, you know it not
A place so long, so long forgot
A place you’ve been and know so well
For I need not to cast the spell

This place I hold, for you is meant
To fill to grow, when I’ve been spent
This place I hold, I hold for you
Until that time when you are new

And new in start and new in growth
And then as one will be the both
As one will be the sweet and pain
The basking deer the lion’s mane

As one will be the knife and sheath
Around your neck a blood-stained wreath
Removed at last to start anew
A path that’s meant for none but you

A path that leads to aid  the rest
To qualm the down to taste the test
The question then be begged to ask
Who lays beneath that wretched mask

Whose time has come, whose days are gone
Whose found a promise in this Song
A promise that is yours to keep
To hold, to ponder, smile, and weep

The question then be begged to ask
Who lays beneath that wretched mask
Who claims that scent that wafts so sweet
Who claims the blood beneath my feet

Who claims that bark so soft and pure
Who claims that heart that warm allure
Will it be they that forged the mask
Relentless void and ruthless task

Will it be him who cut the oak
Whose memory burns the tears to choke
Will it be her whose loving tap
Caused she to flow with blood-red sap

Or will it be the Mighty Oak

Tags: Poetry

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