I glimpsed John Clare between the spent hollyhocks
and the whitewashed wall, his jig-collector’s fiddle
slung upon the shoulder of his coat. Born not mad
like me he was; it says so on his grave, thanks to lichen
eating up the e in that inscription that isn’t true anyway:
a poet is made as well as born. That’s why he sat
hour upon hour on a blackthorn stulp writing down
the nightingale, turned out sonnets like salt shakers
from the lathe, walked all the way to Stamford just
for books, became elegist for the elm, mourner of
swinging moles, obsessively followed the crek crek
of the corncrake through cornfield and over brook
for weeks and weeks, then mapped its wanderings
in stanzas. Not mad – he’s no madder than me because
he loves the gypsy better than the lord or prefers
the company of a harvest mouse to pubs in London
or a parley with the bringers of Enclosure. No madder
than me for ripping out his hair when the corncrake’s
brook was diverted, for standing up angry in the stalls
to tell off actors in a play, not mad, no madder than me, no,
not even when he walked home from the asylum eating
grass along the roadside – born not mad and not made mad
neither. I glimpsed John Clare between the spent
hollyhocks and the whitewashed wall and stood entranced
for hours at how history had stopped for me and honest
John still was walking in his coat of many animals beside
the house he had to leave behind. They scrubbed off
all the lichen from these walls but not his grave, which saves
him from being mad, I say, and someone’s looking at me
strange. I glimpsed John Clare between the spent
hollyhocks and the wall and I’m still there and so is he
and both of us are born and made and made and born
but never mad, as moderns make the high speed rail
and demolish woods to do it because they’re born
mad the lot of them, and they’ll never make us neither.
slung upon the shoulder of his coat. Born not mad
like me he was; it says so on his grave, thanks to lichen
eating up the e in that inscription that isn’t true anyway:
a poet is made as well as born. That’s why he sat
hour upon hour on a blackthorn stulp writing down
the nightingale, turned out sonnets like salt shakers
from the lathe, walked all the way to Stamford just
for books, became elegist for the elm, mourner of
swinging moles, obsessively followed the crek crek
of the corncrake through cornfield and over brook
for weeks and weeks, then mapped its wanderings
in stanzas. Not mad – he’s no madder than me because
he loves the gypsy better than the lord or prefers
the company of a harvest mouse to pubs in London
or a parley with the bringers of Enclosure. No madder
than me for ripping out his hair when the corncrake’s
brook was diverted, for standing up angry in the stalls
to tell off actors in a play, not mad, no madder than me, no,
not even when he walked home from the asylum eating
grass along the roadside – born not mad and not made mad
neither. I glimpsed John Clare between the spent
hollyhocks and the whitewashed wall and stood entranced
for hours at how history had stopped for me and honest
John still was walking in his coat of many animals beside
the house he had to leave behind. They scrubbed off
all the lichen from these walls but not his grave, which saves
him from being mad, I say, and someone’s looking at me
strange. I glimpsed John Clare between the spent
hollyhocks and the wall and I’m still there and so is he
and both of us are born and made and made and born
but never mad, as moderns make the high speed rail
and demolish woods to do it because they’re born
mad the lot of them, and they’ll never make us neither.
(Giles Watson 2020)
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