We walk through ourselves
Return of the flâneur
This is a poem / prose-poem thing I wrote a while ago, after going on a walk along the local canal and taking notes of things to write about. I hope you enjoy.
In myn herte and in my thought, this ryver is fro henceforth holden for a god! Driving through the rocks like a war god, wooing the sedges like a love goddess, and rushing along like a messenger god. One god, then, or three? Singular or triumvirate, it’s bloody loud: the roaring is beginning to drown my thoughts. There is life in them yet, however, as I walk this path I have walked many a many a time before. Ah, a digger—redoing the pavement. Not sure that’s needed, but alright. The money could be better directed but I suppose something needs to be happening at all times. I look behind and they’re out of sight now. I look to my side and there’s some strange fungus growing on a damp log. Vilely beautiful it protrudes. I feel sorry for the log. I have often wished for my corpse to be strewn in a forest somewhere to be picked at by the wildlife and swallowed by the earth, but if these foul mushrooms are to be involved… perhaps the sea is better. Ashes to ashes. Assimilate with the murky depths. Over years my particles would spread and spread. Perhaps I’d thinly cover an entire ocean— who knows? Dust to dust. Yes, that’s what I want: better than any proximity to foul fungi. Proximity to dolphins and clownfish. A rustle: a squirrel flinging itself from branch to branch. I don’t mind proximity to squirrels. I have often heard it said that squirrels are just rats with good PR, due to their bushy tails, but I think there’s more to it than that. Also in the sticks is a food bin. How on earth? What idiot throws a food bin into the trees? Okay, time to cross the road to the canal. Electric cars really sneak up on you. Cars should be loud and announce their presence. And there it is, the canal, stagnant as ever. Scum and deflated footballs and putrid bubbles cover the surface. Beautiful. I know there’s a tree up ahead damming the canal, but still. The money for the diggers could’ve been used to organise a canal clean up. But the ducks are happy enough so I will content myself. I do like these ducks and I see where Tony Soprano was coming from. Swimming, occasionally bobbing, doing nothing of note but doing it perfectly. Perfection was achieved by nature over many, many years— should we achieve it in so few? Wrens flitting about overhead and a plump robin sings. Despite the scum, and the footballs, and that giant refinery tower looming, this could be a new Eden. Still, the tower looms, an alien monument, with monkeys beneath running around in pandemonium. Praise be to nickel, our mineral god! When’s our intelligence coming? And an orchestral swell? When are they coming? The canal water is like a mirror, reflecting the trees. I wonder how the trees see themselves: like narcissus? Or like ap gwilym, composing a cywydd on their ugliness? Ah, reached the end of the canal now and I’m back in civilisation, for better or for worse. Seagulls perch on roofs and people sit in bus stops. Now for the worst part of the walk: trudging up the hill, and returning home, sweaty and tired. Still, it’s worth it. Certainly worth it.
Thank you for reading. The title is taken from James Joyce’s Ulysses:
Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves
