|
in collection An
English Nazareth, 2004,
Enitharmon
Press. ISBN 1-900564-14-9
An English Nazareth
(In
1061, Lady Richeldis of Walsingham, in a series of visions,
received
instructions to build a replica of Christ's home)
We—
who have only our strength to sell
and
so little here to be thankful for—
we
know well she has never risen
from
that embroidered footstool
where
she embroiders her mornings.
Yet
she has stood in His simple home,
she
says, the woodshavings obvious
on
the clay floor, the cramp, the cool.
And
because she has power over us
to
manufacture walls out of English
ground,
to her specifications
(though
she insists, not hers at all;
she's
only a witness to the original),
because
of this her dream has weight.
Here,
a slant of evening sun, the saw
still
warm in the red-grained wood.
Here,
the hammer's shout on the nail
each
time bursting and then dying off
as
she passes a door out of Palestine.
In
an ecstasy, at least three times—
though
not moving one tailor's inch
off
that embroidered footstool
where
we imagine her long fingers
fumbling
over the detail in her lap—
we
picture her there, tall and swaying
richly
through Christ's small house.
And
no matter how vivid her dream,
local
men build as we have always built:
English
wood upon English earth.
The
best we deliver is a mockery,
a
cacked version of our own poor homes
(those
shambles she's never visited)
yet
this is the one she will have us deck
with
flowers, have us light, keep warm,
proof
from rain, since this is the roof
under
which she expects to dwell
long
in grace, in that other real place.
While
we— who have only ourselves to sell—
give
praise to God for the gift of work.
Martyn Crucefix
|
