Taut as a flagstaff, day erects itself despite
wanton sprinklers, the brazen dahlias planted for a Cup.
Just to marvel at the barricades of morning
is a kind of start before the caffeinated rush.
This is how day begins and must,
not with ‘the spurious menace of wind and seas’
but a solitary purposeful figure crossing a park way too early,
not unhandsome, but a freakish suit.
Repeatedly he glances over his shoulder,
framing morning’s vista as if that’s a rifle
oddly awkward in his pack. Rifle or tripod.
Then overtures of shadow colonise the park,
reclaim it, not even eerie yet,
unperturbed by day and its temerities.
Round the park by their windows
executives knot their ties like silky halters,
Windsored for day’s slow sequacious ceremonies:
accommodations of the boardroom,
little defeats by the photocopier.
Soon I’ll drive through alimentary traffic
and address those dawning boys at my old school.
But what to say after the flaccid hymn
and the gowned homily? No idea.
Breakfast is wholesome, not oratory.
Perhaps I should discourse on the romance of morning,
its bleary glory, the dahlias and detritus,
what that loping youth, glancing over his shoulder,
stooping now to light a cigarette,
discerns behind him and ahead: Lord Jim’s
crazy lesson (marked Epiphany in red).
I’ll read it to the boys from my old Penguin edition:
4/-, cracked spine, a boyish script no longer recognisable,
Peter O’Toole indestructible on the front.