Frail as a bone
and fifty-one years old at
law
this year;
you twinkle at me as you
pick,
aloud, through the new language. Humble
before
the law,
with mild complaint at the
setting
aside
of generations of 'in'
terpretation.
Understanding, as opposed
to
that tower
of tranquil clarity
you've
built on, built from; how many
years be
yond,
before the law?
A small complaint to
lose
the Book of Common Prayer - though your own
interpretations
stood the ground for you and
loyalty.
I've seen you stand with your own,
in
dignity,
as calm as any priest or
guardian
of the flock,
and when your time
of
trouble came,
you stood outside the law
right
legally,
and claim'd the wife beside
you
from her bane;
courage alone, really,
testing
the foundations of the wall though
your
friend the priest was hurt you did not come
to
him,
'I well remember, do you not?'
Stooped
now
as you were already twenty
years
ago:
still writing spiderly on
thin
blue paper,
filling the pages with
instruction's
memory,
you mention Hanover
and
Jacobites:
demonstrate honesty
discretion
and integrity
alive
entries
in that far
ranging syllable
of
thought, your detailed mind; to bring us back
to
the matter of the fence
with friendly
rectitude
recalling
as you do the
last
details of old
family trials, while
twenty
miles from notes,
denote the very
bank
to which you faxed relief
and touch on
this
will and an agreement:
a gentle
man
in strength to humble yourself before words
and
the word's meanings, to base
foundation
for
another thousand years
interpret-
ations
on a simple fence:
convey a tone,
perfectly
friendly,
perfectly precise,
and
let the world know the law stands
with the
widow
and the orphan
rank on rank of
archived
history where
arm¢rial
banners
snap as dawn
rides up the hill with
herald
hooves and this frail knight
stands by me
with
a pen and book
marshalled already
without
threat by warning
and admonishment.
