Telling Tales
To weave an enticing tale a quest is
the essential thread – a search no less –
shadowed by a magical bird,
or mutatis mutandis, a beast
with miraculous powers of speech.
The setting: a verdant scene
with a flush of royals ‘decked
or, at least, of nobility a brace,
then too, a maiden – solitary –
practising solfeggios, forlorn.
The narrative, tailored to popular taste,
unfolds stepwise, each task routinely
resolving in a test or trial,
a display of our protagonist’s
savoir-faire, agility or even guile.
The goal? A box – one well-wrought –
meriting the term casket or chest,
of stout oak or teak, furnished
in brass, tarnished but sturdy.
Or iron, maybe – corroded – welded
fast shut, assailable neither by
cunning, main force, nor key.
Its location? Convention demands
a tower, through whose casement
onto cold stone pale sunlight slants.
Possibly a dungeon: kingdom of the cob,
domain of dark scuttlings.
Still, our hero will surely find it out,
unriddling its fastenings to discover …
an ingot of unalloyed happiness.
As we require.
And here we see him – intent,
the hunter in pursuit ,
his mind all pointed purpose …
yet might it – like Zeno’s arrow
never to relish the thud of hitting home –
stall, trapped by its own logic,
into perpetual flight?
Or, is this him, his mind stumbling in its
own undergrowth, the tread of its thinking
hesitant in the shadowed foliage?
What would there be to find in this half-light?
Then again, what if this fabled box
prove no more than a notion,
the thinnest lamina of thought
grown dog-eared with its thinking,
frail as a moth’s wing
translucent against the flame?
But no, it suits us well to have him
uncover the box: we hear him snap
open the clasps, and isn’t that the gleam
of gold reflected in his eyes?
Let us hope so …
Tim Munsey was born in Leicester in 1947 graduated from Leeds University in 1968, then studied and worked abroad until the late ‘70s when he settled in Norwich. He spent the next twenty-one years sailing a traditional Broads yacht and getting to know closely the Broadland landscape – sometimes too intimately in the case of certain mudbanks. After retiring from teaching in 2006 he began to try and write poetry: unfortunately tide and wind are seldom favourable.