Burns Night quatrains
Here’s my right hand, a sign of amity,
Visual proof of my disarmament.
But leaving little as a legacy
An empty final will and testament.
No lively wood shaped by the chisel’s blow.
No well-worked clay, no comforting caress.
No sketch, no minor key arpeggio,
No actor’s pause, no digital success.
These fingers had a role in writing prose
Yes, yet passively and not uniquely so.
The keys amenable to nose and toes
The words conveyed if need be in dumb show.
And now poor hand, arthritically misshaped,
Dupuytren teased, brown spotted, slow to act,
Inherits that which may not be escaped
A nervousness that breaks the body’s pact.
The hand and mind that worked decisively
Now fear the new and lurch away from change,
New books, new friends are seen as emnity
And outwardness is timid in exchange.
That age debilitates is hardly new,
But age contracts a world we once thought wide
Not wanting to discover me and you
Reveals an unexpected dark outside.
If I must shrink then I must learn to lean
On near and known established quality
And say that bacon comes as fat and lean
And humdrum verse is mere frivolity
Here’s my right hand, a sign of amity,
Visual proof of my disarmament.
But leaving little as a legacy
An empty final will and testament.
No lively wood shaped by the chisel’s blow.
No well-worked clay, no comforting caress.
No sketch, no minor key arpeggio,
No actor’s pause, no digital success.
These fingers had a role in writing prose
Yes, yet passively and not uniquely so.
The keys amenable to nose and toes
The words conveyed if need be in dumb show.
And now poor hand, arthritically misshaped,
Dupuytren teased, brown spotted, slow to act,
Inherits that which may not be escaped
A nervousness that breaks the body’s pact.
The hand and mind that worked decisively
Now fear the new and lurch away from change,
New books, new friends are seen as emnity
And outwardness is timid in exchange.
That age debilitates is hardly new,
But age contracts a world we once thought wide
Not wanting to discover me and you
Reveals an unexpected dark outside.
If I must shrink then I must learn to lean
On near and known established quality
And say that bacon comes as fat and lean
And humdrum verse is mere frivolity
Novel progress 28/1/10. Ch. 13: 1253 words. Chs. 1 - 12: 52,579 words. Comments: Clare approaches the crux of the story, or so she thinks.
