Skip to main content

I am/you are

 

 




As I said, old as Janus was, I’m sure his view wouldn't have extended to prehistory.

Or, come to think of it, to us here now.

My poem for this month looks back that far, way past Janus, into a boggy place here in Devon.

A quarryman working in Kingsteignton in 1867 found a little wooden figure which could be held in his hand. Preserved by the clay, this model man is some 2,400 years old.  His body may be attenuated and armless, but somehow he exerts an extraordinary power.  The eroded face, carved in the late Iron Age, confronts us – you, me – one face facing another.

Was he a religious idol, a gift to the gods or just a doll, the archaeologists ask?

We can't answer that question. And, if I may say so, perhaps it doesn’t really matter.  He is what he is – like us.

What we do know is that one's encounter with him remains etched deeper in the memory after a visit to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum than many another far more beautiful, grander and more complex exhibit.

I'm not sure why this should be, but as I draw near to that face, I feel the millennia falling away, and that in some strange way he's telling us his image is ours as well.

 


I am your image

 

Flesh may decay but I am oak

millennia old and I am your image

 

now clean and dry, chromium poled

officially numbered I am your image

 

presented erect, appropriately noticed

in your bright light I am your image

 

drowned to survive and pulled from a pool

history is unclear. I am your image

 

returning your gaze under furrows and ridges

crinkles run deep. I am your image

 

and fit in a hand. Soft fingers have curled

round my hard waist. I am your image

 

awaiting discovery deep in a corner

beyond the play table. I am your image

 

standing still armless, yet armed

with weapon unsheathed I am your image

 

ready to challenge, my scowl is yours

I wait as I have done, for I am your image

 

from long ago. Confrontation continues

you will pass while I am your image

 

retaining for ever my speckles of sparkle.





Image © Sibelco / Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter City Council


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rake Daddy Rake

  As with lots of good stories, there are many versions. Basically this one's about a pair of Wiltshire yokels raking a pond for kegs of smuggled brandy.  They feigned lunacy when surprised by the excise men, saying that they were trying to rake out the full moon which was reflected in the water.  Their ruse was successful. The officials had no trouble in deciding they were lunatics, so left them to their raking. Interestingly, the Lunacy Act of 1842 defined a lunatic as someone ‘afflicted with a period of fatuity in the period following a full moon’. I suppose any time falls into the category of a 'period following a full moon'.  As for fatuity, that might include all of us on certain occasions, not least since it's not stated how long 'a period' is.  Perhaps then we're all occasionally lunatic... Be all that as it may, on this occasion the lunatics (I've put inverted commas round the word and taken them out several times) outwitted the sober and sane, ...
5 comments
Read more

A Concatenation of Catchwords

    My daughter’s cat has captivated her family. Even I – being more of a dog person (Timmy our Jack Russell hates cats) – found myself admiring his grace and beauty, and all those skills a cat deploys and enjoys.  Thinking about their cat, I realised how many words contain 'cat'; so it was that this poem took shape. Predictably, I then thought I should write a dog poem. I didn’t actually get very far, having identified only a few dog words: after dogma/dogmatic, dogged, lying doggo and Venetian doges I began to run out. So the dog poem had to wait, its tongue hanging out. But having just gone to my (big) dictionary and found a long list of dog words and phrases, ranging from a certain Shakespearian Dogberry through dog collars, dog days and dog-eared to a dog’s dinner, the Dogstar and dogwatch, I now feel like telling Timmy something can be found to be thrown, and he can wag his tail – even chase a cat.    A Concatenation of Catchwords   Where ...
7 comments
Read more

Still Life

  Love comes in many forms. My little poem this month celebrates a couple of them. I celebrate the manifest love a girl feels for a tiny bird upon her hand. In this moment, she is captivated.  It is as if, for a timeless instance, during which they each illuminate the other. nothing else exists, But another form of love’s in play - a father's love for his daughter. She's grown up now, but here she still is – an innocent girl, my daughter, entranced by a bird. I too am captivated. Perhaps that's what love's all about?   Still Life   A moment it was and a moment still is when colours come live soft life radiates and lightness descends to surprise and delight one who is loving observant and awestruck whose open hands gentle a wonder of nature sensing perfection   warm in the sunshine a golden girl glows blessed by a fledgling just for a moment a moment of stillness before each flies away  
7 comments
Read more