The Journal Wk. 27

The Mirror and the Light: The Bleach Fields

The years have changed you,

Made of you a tower –

The King admires it, applauds,

Seeing how well-built its dungeons,

How fair its upper rooms, how welcoming its face;

And you would not deceive him,

Not your lord

So it is true, then, in its way.

Yet all your walls are hung about with shining shields

To catch and keep his favour in,

To hide his aging face –

The armour that you wear is made of lies and light,

And there is none so cunning, none so bright.

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‘….It all goes back to More.’

She frowns, So many names, too many; too much geography, the terrain of a strange land. ‘Nothing ended with his death,’ he says. ‘It only began….’

The Mirror and the Light, 430

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You would not think the man is dead

For he has got inside your head

And daily makes you conversation

On kings, executions, and the nation –

Alas, you cry, the things I used to hear

Are drowned out now a ghost lives in my ear.

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The Journal is a section where I post weekly poems responding to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. Here’s last week’s edition:

The Journal Wk. 26