Drowning a Mermaid

Drowning A Mermaid

I'm told it's often said by glorious ghosts  

Who haunt the Courts of Higher Excellence 

That survivors are not like the rest of us:

They survive and we are born to die.

It made no sense to think of you as young

Or of ourselves as three or four times older  

Than you would ever be. There was no point   

In asking where you learned to paint like that 

And if I'm ever asked, I say: From you.

But the virtue of your line was no defence

Against the kind of curiosity 

That kills the artist and ignores the art. 

The Mark Of Destiny (it has no formal title)

Derives its quasi-mystical authority 

From the stealth and anonymity with which 

It makes a promise found a promise kept

And steals the gift that makes the promise true.

It made no sense to think of you as young

Until the Mark Of Destiny contrived 

To make the child a child celebrity.

It's not enough to work; you must be seen 

And if you can't you must be seen to fail.

To go on working once your work is known 

Displays an arrogant refusal to engage.

Someone somewhere claimed - or may have claimed 

(The source was vague, but the authority 

Was unimpeachable) - that you had used 

Your age as an excuse for saying nothing

When it was clearly your responsibility 

As an artist and a seven-year-old 

To speak, when asked, of justice and the world 
And of the glory of the Lord our God.

My long sabbatical was an opportunity 

To swap the squalor of my little shed  

For three thousand years of maritime disaster 

And a tideless wilderness of dirty water.

I've occupied the best years of my life  

Among the wreckage of a world of ships.

The chambermaid has brought a cup of tea

And I'm amazed that I am still alive.