TRIBUTE TO A TEMPLE
(Composed prior to 1971; from manuscript held by B. Burke)Once,
Lanky locomotives, tall
as lady-poets piping
lifted their hems, and SHRILL!
- fled from the valleys menaced
by such dark masculine mills.
(From crowded valleys, snaking down
in trains of salmon-pink and brown
came town-after-town-after-town-after-town …)
Maiden engines pick through points
Past shunting-engines - furtive in cuttings –
and old-men signals’ lecherous winks
they shepherd the innocent coaches chattering
Boy-Scout-shining, brown-and-pink.
And brown-and-pink they lead them through
Fastidious. (High Stepping, too!)
“Fastidious”? - The “Lancashire and Yorkshire” then
in Nineteen-ten paid five per cent.
Serving … not Mammon (Nor even Men) … but …
The maidens – Iron maidens – are wreathed
Like Druids when they breathe
Bury, Bolton, Bacup, far this morning left behind,
the sky’s a copper bowl at Preston …
Leaving the “North Western”
The trains will merely pass non-stop
But “All change”
The Sun God … smiles!
ALL change!
and High Priestesses, piping wild
now stream in procession across the Fylde
to Blackpool.
It’s Long-ago! And the old faith anoints
each congregation, genuflecting over points
and into the Central Railway Station
(Portal of the temple to the Old Immortal there beyond ..)
Slowly and holy, each Priestess in bliss
greets the buffers – acolytes kneeling for her pious kiss.
“Brethren, now is the time appointed …”
Down from the Pilgrim trains they climb.
Fragrant (with Railway oil anointed
frankincensed with Smoke divine)
but sackcloth-brown.
Till [sanctifying]
Druid engines to the left-and-right
sensing humility, sighing, sighing
robe them all anew,
In white.
They pass.
And THEN – upon what Blood Red Spike
was ever immolation … - sweeter ..?
OR, more DEAR?
The God, re-gilded every year.
And not with common GOLD …
But - BRASS!!
[Editor’s note: the word “sanctifying” in line 43 does not appear in the MS held by B. Burke; I can however remember that it was definitely in the poem when Croghan made a recording (which has since been lost) of it in 1972.]
[BACK TO "RAILWAY POEMS" SELECTION]
