I promise nothing: Friends will part. All things may end, for all began; And truth and singleness of heart Are mortal even as is man. (H.E. Houseman) When I made this tile, in 2012, I was describing the feeling of being on a ledge, high above the traffic, hand extended but finding nothing there to hold on to. The stitching that binds us together is so fragile, so looped, so problematic that it is only very seldom that we find the magic echo of another's soul ready to meet our outstretched heart. But it happens. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes above all, hope and trust. My heart goes out to all of you who are scared and uncomprehending. I wish you had more faith; I hope you gain more courage. Trusting in the miracle of connection and love is just the key to a marvellous peaceful and redemptive life. Even when it doesn't work, it works. Believe me, I know.
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When the badger glimmered away
into another garden you stood, half-lit with whiskey, sensing you had disturbed some soft returning. The murdered dead, you thought. But could it not have been some violent shattered boy nosing out what got mislaid between the cradle and the explosion, evenings when windows stood open and the compost smoked down the backs? Visitations are taken for signs. At a second house I listened for duntings under the laurels and heard intimations whispered about being vaguely honoured. And to read even by carcasses the badgers have come back. One that grew notorious lay untouched by the roadside. Last bight one had me braking but more in fear than in honour. Cool from the sett and redolent of his runs under the night, the bogey of fern country broke cover in me for what he is: pig family and not at all what he's painted. How perilous is it to choose not to love the life we're shown? His sturdy dirty body and interloping grovel. The intelligence in his bone. The unquestionable houseboy's shoulders that could have been my own. |
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