Here's another poem that involves John Clare.
I'm not usually this literary.
But John Clare is one of my places.
This one's a little more complex,
and for this, you have to know that a couple more things
about John Clare.
He was put in an institution and treated fairly nicely,
but he escaped.
He wanted to go back home.
It was a good thing that he was put in an institution,
because at the time, he was, I don't
know what the technical term is, but a cottager.
And it was at the time that England wasn't closing land.
And he probably would have starved to death
if he hadn't been put in a mental institution.
Because he wouldn't have been able to earn a living.
And what happens in this poem is some
of the facts, some of the things when he escaped or left,
he kept a journal.
And so, I've cribbed some things from his journal
and worked it against another visit.
It's called "Visiting You."
The erratic breeze and blue moment of sun
are gone when I hear you mumble like steeled
John Clare on the third day to Northborough.
Honest courage and myself in my army, I led the way,
and my troops soon followed.
Hungry, half lame, toward the sure disappointment
that awaited, or else not caring,
which is to say content.
A man mad to be on that road to his lost home.
I see you're lounging heart, the guests arrive.
I hear the talk start hard, a child
with coiling pink embroidery at her throat and arms cry
because she's cold.
People, the last of them me, have
waited to meet her too often.
Whatever meek protest I make, I'll
follow as she, who's just plain tired of the open mouths
of visitors, follows the floor and lighted hall to bed.
As for Clare's bizarre invention,
it bridged the way toward hope but was too
thin to bear him any happiness.
His choice-- be sane or eat.
History was cruel, the actual man could choose less.
Infrequently returning, the visits
each predictable each time, he stares,
shudders for what's to come.
And when I visit you, who's to say which of us is bereft?
The bald hill I climbed with friends
from which I saw the river wind through a half circle of trees.
We got chased away by yellowjackets,
the shrieking girl stirring a ground nest
that swarmed and stung us all.
And we hadn't enough time left for our hands to come down.
Now you are all gone.
Say the pain of the present won or the bees.
Mad John Clare would understand.