bees

The Vicarage, Morwenstow - the beautiful house
built for the eccentric Reverend R S Hawker
See also The Wreck of the Caledonia

My siblings and many cousins will no doubt remember our big family holidays in North Cornwall and Devon

and staying at the vicarage in Morwenstow

and the little room called The Eyrie that looked down into the courtyard

and how the bees had built a huge hive in the ceiling

which became so laden with honeycomb that the plaster bulged ominously

and how inevitably it had to go.

For homework from my writing class last week, we were asked to write a piece on "consequences" and we were given a poem TheWasps by David Constantine as inspiration.  This is my response.

we are the bees

(because she is here)

that fizzed in and found her (be-

cause she is here) and we have

been fuming about

the blooms

of this summer

garden (because she is here)

supping colours up from yellow

cowslips and black-ey'd susans

till we are foxglove

dust laden

with sunny set

honey-suckle pollen (because

she is here) and we are thick-covered 

with dusky jasmine warmth with

 carousing courage from

our craving labours

and we have found

the hole between blockstone

and mortar (because she is here)

worn by rain these two hundred

years that leads to the

cavern within

the roof among

the smoky joists above

the plaster and we have stocked our

larder (because she is here) full of

plenty with this season's

sucking and churning

and spittling and

wraggling and you human

can see the bulging pendulous

bagsacks of our great labours

groaning (because

she is here)

combing (because

she is here) in the flaking

ceiling and you come and crack-

make with your bullnose

chisel (because

she is here)

and your mallet

and your shrouded hat

and your tight-cuffed sleeves

and your tarry fumes and you

chop us out drowsy

(because she

is here) in this

evening as this sun's day sets

sizzling into the sailing sea and

yes you hesitate (because she is

here) but still you

burn us up

The Wreck Of The Caledonia

From here in Hawker’s Hut, the sea

sounds strangely dumb, although below

it pounds the feet of Sharpnose Point,

while in this cliff clad hermitage

(where future youth will score their names

and learn to inhale cigarettes)

the Reverend Hawker meditates.

A madness drives his view on life

but here he sketches homily

for Sunday morning at the Church.

The hellish grinding of the rocks

below plays heavily in his ear

though mewing gulls soar peacefully

on thermals rising from the cliff.

The wind whines through the furze above.

That night, the Caledonia hugs

too close to shore for safety’s sake.

The heavy sea remorselessly

thuds up against her wooden boards

and drives her onto fatal rocks

shattering her hulk and spewing out

her reckless crew into the waves.

Skulls split on granite, lungs are filled,

And life is dashed from valiant men.

The Reverend Hawker, being brought news

of sailors’ souls tossed on the beach

like flotsam battering the strand,

takes all his faith in God above

and wraps it muffler-like around his

heart and fits himself with gear

and finds the path that daylight’s shown,

and with his lanthorn in his hand

he scrambles down the rocky scree

to minister to parted souls.

And one by one he lumps them up

upon his back, the drownded men,

and with an unknown strength he heaves

the bloated bodies of these sea struck dead

all up the path down which he trod

and lays them on the churchyard bank.

A dozen corpses now bestrew

the grassy mound beside the lane.

And as the dawn strikes up the sky

and night winds drop and grey clouds scud,

he takes a shovel from the shed

and labours hour on hour until

twelve graves are fretted from the earth,

the which, like spokes upon a wheel,

he centres head to head

to radiate a dozen dead.

Their feet to clock face numbers point

though their time is up upon this night.

Then once more down the beetling cliff

he makes his weary way to fetch

the Caledonia’s figure head

a wooden totem, sword in hand,

to guard the souls here laid to rest.

 

He plants the ghostly figure there

at the centre of the watery grave

to mark the very fulcrum where life ceded to death

And now, the storytellers say,

should any on a full-faced moon

walk twelve times round the fearsome site

the figure’s midnight blade will flash,

come down upon the soulless brave

and smite them dead upon the spot.

But I have sense that Hawker still

stands looking from his pulpit cave

prepared should ever need arise

to step out down the rocky cliff

and act as deadly midwife to the drowning souls

that might fall foul of Cornwall’s treacherous tides.

Here is a link to Hawker's own poem THE FIGURE-HEAD OF THE CALEDONIA AT HER CAPTAIN’S GRAVE