the 'lesser splendour'A sleepy, stopping train through Cambridgeshire.
After one halt, a country woman sat
in my double-seat. Merged almost into her,
I saw, etched by her tautened dress on fat,
motherly fen-wife thighs, corset suspenders,
a resurrection, their chunky contours plain,
immense and unashamed. The lesser splendour,
Ely cathedral, slid past the dusty pane.
She drowsed; we swayed. I felt faint with desire
for that archaic vision: not from lust,
but as awed souls stroked relics for their power
of healing magic. If I should just
allow a sideways lurch to lay my hand
as if by chance there, she will understand.
-----------------------
An experience I had while travelling to Norfolk for a festival, sometime in the 1980's. Corsets were, of course, by then almost as archaic as farthingales. I guess the woman was about fifty, so by no means an old granny who'd never given up on her corset-wearing.
By the way --no, I didn't. Wanted to, by God. Was she aware of my fascination? I've no idea.
I chose the sonnet form to concentrate it. Difficult to write; have been changing it constantly. Tried to get in St.Etheldreda, the founding abbess at Ely. When her body was disinterred her hand was found to be uncorrupted, so was worshipped as a relic. Decided she was irrelevant.
After one halt, a country woman sat
in my double-seat. Merged almost into her,
I saw, etched by her tautened dress on fat,
motherly fen-wife thighs, corset suspenders,
a resurrection, their chunky contours plain,
immense and unashamed. The lesser splendour,
Ely cathedral, slid past the dusty pane.
She drowsed; we swayed. I felt faint with desire
for that archaic vision: not from lust,
but as awed souls stroked relics for their power
of healing magic. If I should just
allow a sideways lurch to lay my hand
as if by chance there, she will understand.
-----------------------
An experience I had while travelling to Norfolk for a festival, sometime in the 1980's. Corsets were, of course, by then almost as archaic as farthingales. I guess the woman was about fifty, so by no means an old granny who'd never given up on her corset-wearing.
By the way --no, I didn't. Wanted to, by God. Was she aware of my fascination? I've no idea.
I chose the sonnet form to concentrate it. Difficult to write; have been changing it constantly. Tried to get in St.Etheldreda, the founding abbess at Ely. When her body was disinterred her hand was found to be uncorrupted, so was worshipped as a relic. Decided she was irrelevant.
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