I am a latecomer to Elidius, L and confess to being confused by his ramblings often but I like particularly the third stanza here, pen pushing though all that (he) has been and is becoming which leads to that apparently effortless guidance metaphor which is both surprising and satisfactory. Fair stopped my thoughts this stanza. Now, all I've ever known, in a sense, too.
B
> On 3 Jun 2015, at 2:27 am, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> If I lived elsewhere, this version had died
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> in draft, crossed through and much overwritten –
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> as once I was foetal, fishlike. There are,
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> of us, ocean qualities; though we need boats
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> for life, bringing us to dry mountain tops.
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>
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> Ghosts jangle their ways into their lost peace,
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> denying that which they must acknowledge.
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>
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> What I have been, my pen pushes through me,
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> writing all that I am since becoming.
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> My hand and I are guided. Like a beast
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> led to new pasture. Or a well-fed horse
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> suddenly burdened by someone not itself,
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> of doubtable love, spurring; who does no harm
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> yet leads it into harm. I am too young
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> in brain to do anything otherwise. I am
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> here now; and now is all I’ve ever known.
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>
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> He whose experience taught me of him
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> is not accessible today. Not here.
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> My memory updates a teacher’s chalk list.
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> My imposed tasks and my weird brief identity.
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> All of my now lost years are new leaf mould
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> and myth. My poor recall’s a charm on the dead.
>
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