As we pass the one-year anniversary of the funeral of Queen II of England, Avellina Balestri reflects on the monarch’s passing.
Memories of Britain return to me
Day and night, they are woven into me
The puddles reflecting the gray sky
Broken umbrellas and soaking shoes,
The scent of moist Midland meadows
And the flowers, proud and purple,
Growing from the cracks at the bus stop,
Drinking in the late spring rain.
A voice cautions me to “mind the gap”
And calls out places I know from poetry,
Common sounding names that kiss me.
So many voices surround me
The accents of the Isles, heavenly and earthy,
A subtle symphony, a fantasia of history
Gossiping and grumbling, politics and weather,
The wry quips, the soft chortling,
Directions given by the courteous and confused
Wearing so little upon the sleeve,
But sincerity, rarely equaled.
They ask if I’m a Yank, and I smile
Perhaps I had forgotten I was different
Drawn into this monotonous current,
This humdrum that feels so much like home.
Britannia is the mother, beloved and blessed,
And she harrows up the soul.
Pedestrians insist I leave the beaten path
To go God knows where for God knows what
But they come from that village just a way off,
And they will be loyal to her, come what may.
Oh, what I would give for just one more day here.
The coins are in my hands now,
The kind collected in my childhood
With the Queen’s head, ever Queen of my heart,
Little sacramentals of a deeper reality,
But also the dividing line of have and have not.
For this too is Britain—
Men curled up in bed rolls on the Oxford streets,
Stark against the elegant edifices,
Beggars who have slipped through those cracks
From which the flowers spring.
Lady Poverty is here, and we fear her
For she could become our own mistress,
And we hesitate to meet her gaze.
But we cannot hide from these daily agonies.
Wherever we turn, human struggle is there.
A tired working mother rides the bus,
Bruises under the eyes, and wrinkles in the face,
Counting the pennies from three jobs
Just to make ends meet.
She is another side of Lady Britannia,
No less noble, no less true,
In the cycles of work-a-day travail.
There are hard times in Old England
But her people are still gold.
And from across the sea, I watch them
From every class and race,
Linked in a single grieving chain.
They chat over thermoses of tea
And wrapped sandwiches,
Lining up in the September chill,
Joking, but with solemn eyes,
As the queue wends its way through London,
A latter-day pilgrimage route.
Yes, the great and the small are here
For the Queen is dead, and the King lives.
Yes, the Queen lies in ancient halls
And the King extends his hand
He represents the people to the world
And the country to the people
And it is the people that are his purpose.
Yes, this little sacrament of touch,
This icon of a greater mystery,
Of all that it means to be human
In the image of the divine!
We bow to that which we may not define
We submit to that which cannot be rationalized.
For Elizabeth was the mother, beloved and blessed,
And oh, she harrows up the soul!
But the Cross is upon the Crown,
And Death is swallowed up in Victory.
The golden lions and scarlet coats,
The choir’s hymn and the bagpipe’s skirl.
My eyes and my ears are where I cannot be.
The memories of Britain, how they return to me!
The spirit of Britain, how she haunts me.
For if my heart is not at one with her,
I have no heart at all.
Further poems about England and royalty can be found in Pendragon’s Shield by Avellina Balestri.
Cover photo by Pexels Free Photos