Book Ends III

Grey breasted pigeon-toed, behind the crowd, we're standing by the aunts we never knew. We stopped our Queen's procession, slowly cowed by sympathy, and yeah, "we're sorry too," as if the gentle black-silk tidal wave was silent mea culpa to them all. That solemn British Zeitgeist, cyclical - I'll stammer shut, and you'll forget to shave. I'll say, in words pronounced too London-clean That she, mater superior, is dead - she lives in long-lost photos never seen her favourite colour, blue - you never said. You'll turn the pages, hard, as if they stuck. Achilles, truly Paris'd in the chest; "A Scholar, t'aint be long before he leaves" - you said, misreading, left before the rest. ((This was written as an A-level homework task based on Book Ends I & II by Tony Harrison. As a result, it may sound weird coming from my very non-northern mind. Ignore my provincialism. =p))