Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne’er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty!
This Lime Tree Bower my Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1797
This is the time of year when the lime tree
can shock with the power of its pungent scent
dropping down under the dark green droop
of its dense branches.
Coleridge’s lines are always triggered by the smell.
Today the conjunction of tree and urban misery
brought a new pungency to the conjunction.
The tree was outside Compton House
a tower block a stone’s throw away from here.
Three months ago to the day
Malachi Brooks was stabbed to death
returning home one night
right outside
under the lime tree.
He had a girl friend. He had a baby.
The community wept and built him a shrine
of teddies and pictures, candles and flowers.
It keeps its vigil for him still
in its lime tree bower
but now with lime flower pollen sifting into drifts
around the icons.
Malachi, who I didn’t know,
recalled to life by memories
as was the departing Charles Lamb,
who I also didn’t know, by Coleridge.
But ‘keep the heart awake to Love and Beauty’?
Alas for poor Malachi, stabbed right through his heart.
28 June 2017
Riverview Songs 