I was in London last Friday evening, and decided to walk to Kensington
Palace in an Iain Sinclairish frame of mind, but with some paper
hankies in my pocket, just in case. I don't have a television, but I did
acquire certain expectations from the radio and the broadsheets. I also
agreed with a lot that Lawrence wrote, perhaps that was my departure
point...
I did the route: first from San Lorenzo to Caroline Charles to Harrods.
Dodi's father outside Harrods was where the paper hankies came in good
stead, but nothing could have prepared me for the collective silence. This
silence descended on the vast and diverse crowd as the hearse went by
when I was standing opposite the Royal Albert Hall, and also by Kensington
Palace, against the cellophaned floral mountain, and the shrines around
trees with poems stickytaped to leaves, and the pictures against the park
railings; a silence which was not oppressive, and indeed, even being part
of a crowd, which I usually try to avoid, that silence allowed thought.
Yes, it did remind me of Virgin Mary cults, but in the sense of a
collective recognition that qualities commonly associated with the mother,
so often ignored or belittled, are a mainstay of human well-being. It
seemed not society's failure to organise itself so that it would support all
and even the most disadvantaged, but rather the failure of extant
institutions to give care as only the individual could, that was mourned.
It is an irony that Lawrence and Richard decided to prune (but not
cutback) their gardens rather than going into the crowd to listen to
its silence. This withdrawal, in effect, to keep intact staple leftwing
ideas on the media, class, and the 'masses', all the while with one eye on
the comfort of one's own flowers, is not a "brave stance", as they
themselves described it, but an imitation of the Royals laagering at
Balmoral.
Elizabeth's account of reading Richard's poem on the tube and then seeing
the news, made me think that, as poets, they made interesting points on
public language, and, after all, that is what this discussion list is
about. And I shall certainly get hold of a copy of fragmente.
Karlien
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