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Telling Tales<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n To weave an enticing tale a quest is<\/p>\n the essential thread – a search no less –<\/p>\n shadowed by a magical bird,<\/p>\n or mutatis mutandis,<\/em> a beast<\/p>\n with miraculous powers of speech.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The setting: a verdant scene<\/p>\n with a flush of royals \u2018decked<\/p>\n or, at least, of nobility a brace,<\/p>\n then too, a maiden – solitary –<\/p>\n practising solfeggios, forlorn.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The narrative, tailored to popular taste,<\/p>\n unfolds stepwise, each task routinely<\/p>\n resolving in a test or trial,<\/p>\n a display of our protagonist\u2019s<\/p>\n savoir-faire, agility or even guile.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The goal? A box – one well-wrought –<\/p>\n meriting the term casket <\/em>or chest<\/em>,<\/p>\n of stout oak or teak, furnished<\/p>\n in brass, tarnished but sturdy.<\/p>\n Or iron, maybe – corroded – welded<\/p>\n fast shut, assailable neither by<\/p>\n cunning, main force, nor key.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Its location? Convention demands<\/p>\n a tower, through whose casement<\/p>\n onto cold stone pale sunlight slants.<\/p>\n Possibly a dungeon: kingdom of the cob,<\/p>\n domain of dark scuttlings.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, our hero will surely find it out,<\/p>\n unriddling its fastenings to discover …<\/p>\n an ingot of unalloyed happiness.<\/p>\n As we require.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And here we see him – intent,<\/p>\n the hunter in pursuit ,<\/p>\n his mind all pointed purpose …<\/p>\n yet might it – like Zeno\u2019s arrow<\/p>\n never to relish the thud of hitting home –<\/p>\n stall, trapped by its own logic,<\/p>\n into perpetual flight?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Or, is this him, his mind stumbling in its<\/p>\n own undergrowth, the tread of its thinking<\/p>\n hesitant in the shadowed foliage?<\/p>\n What would there be to find in this half-light?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then again, what if this fabled box<\/p>\n prove no more than a notion,<\/p>\n the thinnest lamina of thought<\/p>\n grown dog-eared with its thinking,<\/p>\n frail as a moth\u2019s wing<\/p>\n translucent against the flame?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But no, it suits us well to have him<\/p>\n uncover the box: we hear him snap<\/p>\n open the clasps, and isn\u2019t that the gleam<\/p>\n of gold reflected in his eyes?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let us hope so …<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tim Munsey<\/strong> was born in Leicester in 1947 graduated from Leeds University in 1968, then studied and worked abroad until the late \u201870s 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 \u2018decked or, at least, of nobility […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4934"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4937,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4934\/revisions\/4937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}