or,
Why I went to Devon
To tell the truth
I went to Devon when I almost got lost in Particulate Matter
that swirled and whirled as the wind whistled down the Brompton Road
and like many Arcadians I nearly died outside Harrods as I strode
by, breathless and choking in a Bedouin duststorm meriting a fatwa
and difficult even for an Arabian merchant with a camel load
of frankincense, dates, silks and all those other Harrods things.
The Matter was pursued by a caravan of Dervish shoppers
and a wind from the West.
And I thought, I must get behind this wind with wings,
I must ask this large Metropolitan copper (or, I shall come a cropper)
where I might breathe the air that is best.
To cut a long story short
I went round about the world and came to Devon,
carrying figs and molasses, rare things from far, exotic shores,
and other things I had thought
to buy first in that Brompton bazaar and store of stores.
I came then to a place of untamed legends, a natural heaven,
where the hills rolled and the surf crashed,
and the clouds sailed and the sunshine splashed
over the apple orchards and wild, desolate moors
where one walks all day alone, resting on high rock-strewn tors.
There now I (stay and) trace the memory of people I once knew
and hold fast the recollection of friends of long ago;
I stand yet upon the hill searching the distant view
and adumbrate my patchwork past stretched out below.
I find in wind and sunshine that thought of you,
and in the warm and fragrant airy blow
I often take a deep breath and call out to the sky
“I shall never taste death, and I shall never die!”
I have never returned to the land of Particulate Matter.
19th June 2022
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