Act As If
Act as if your love
Has gone,
As if you live
Alone
And have to sort out bills
And fix the house,
Buy food,
Keep beauty ordered
Giving cat and bird
The care they’re used to,
Keeping fire, chopping wood…
Think it through
As though
You are the sole support -
(Not counting God and thought.)
A revelation in itself.
All its own,
You alone - to do alone
What two could do before.
Has gone,
As if you live
Alone
And have to sort out bills
And fix the house,
Buy food,
Keep beauty ordered
Giving cat and bird
The care they’re used to,
Keeping fire, chopping wood…
Think it through
As though
You are the sole support -
(Not counting God and thought.)
A revelation in itself.
All its own,
You alone - to do alone
What two could do before.
Canada Bereft -- Walter Seymour Allward
Mother Canada (Canada Bereft), a 30-ton single block of stone, is part of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial honoring the soldiers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who were killed or presumed missing in action in World War I. It was designed by Walter Seymour Allward on Vimy Ridge, a gradually rising escarpment on the western edge of the Douai plains, 8 km (5 mi) northeast of Arras, taken by lieutenant-general Julian Byng in April 1917. After Allward received the commission in 1921 he sold his home and studio in Toronto and moved to Europe. It took him 2 years to select the right marble, which he finally found in the ruins of the 4th-century Dioklecijanova palača (Diocletian's retirement palace) at Split, Hrvatska. It was quarried from a site near nearby Seget, but difficulties with the quarrying process and complicated transportation logistics delayed delivery of the limestone; the 1st shipment did not arrive at the site until 1927, and the larger blocks, intended for the 20 double life-size human figures, did not begin to arrive until 1931. The site was formally dedicated in 1936. The Germans overran the site in 1940 but was preserved by Adolf Hitler, who admired its pacific nature.
ReplyDeleteSo touching. After writing it so very long ago, and reading it now I'm touched by what it hints at.
ReplyDelete-author