CONTINUITY

Fourteen birds wing in from the south east.

Clouds open to reveal the sun of the Spring Equinox

as the Scribe reads out name after name -

past chosen chiefs, a litany of change,

service given for their day and generation.

John Toland, seventeen-seventeen,

an organizer with enough drawing power

to bring disparate parts together;

the antiquarian William Stukley

followed by Edward Finch Hatton

whose name rolls out like poetry itself;

then David Samway;

everyone recognizes William Blake

making a mental ah-aah

and a firmer connection with listening;

Godfrey Higgins, William Carpenter, Edward Vaughan Kenealy;

Gerald Massey wore the mantle twenty-six years;

John Barry O'Callaghan, George McGregor-Reid,

and his son Robert McGregor-Reid and

Thomas Lackenby Maughan.

(He probably chivied them all

to rouse themselves, come along

and touch wing to mind

of any receptive to their gifts -

seeds sown, grown, fruited and returned to the soil

making the foundation on which we now stand.)

The words vibrate on.

The birds circle above

and depart as the Scribe intones

'Fare thee well - until we meet again.'

 

Kaaren Whitney

Spring Equinox 2003

 

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