Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RESOLUTION OF DEPENDENCE, by GEORGE BARKER


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RESOLUTION OF DEPENDENCE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I encountered the crowd returning from amusements
Last Line: The equation is the interdependence of parts.'
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)


I encountered the crowd returning from amusements,
The Bournemouth Pavilion, or the marvellous
gardens,
The Palace of Solace, the Empyrean Cinema: and
saw
William Wordsworth was once, tawdrily conspicuous,
Obviously emulating the old man of the mountain-
moor,
Traipsing along the outskirts of the noisy crowd.
Remarkable I reflected that after all it is him.
The layers of time falling continually on Grasmere
Churchyard,
The accumulation of year and year like calendar,
The acute superstition that Wordsworth is after all
dead,
Should have succeeded in keeping him quiet and
cold.
I resent the resurrection when I feel the updraft of
fear.

But approaching me with a watch in his hand, he
said:
'I fear you are early; I expected a man; I see
That already your private rebellion has been quelled.
Where are the violent gestures of the individualist?
I observe the absence of the erratic, the strange;
Where is the tulip, the rose, or the bird in hand?'
I had the heart to relate the loss of my charms,
The paradise pets I kept in my pocket, the bird,
The tulip trumpet, the penis water pistol;
I hand the heart to have mourned them, but no word.
'I have done little reading,' I murmured, 'I have
Most of the time been trying to find an equation.'

He glanced over my shoulder at the evening
promenade.
The passing people, like Saint Vitus, averted their
eyes:
I saw his eyes like a bent pin searching for eyes
To grip and catch. 'It is a species', he said,
'I feel I can hardly cope with -- it is ghosts,
Trailing, like snails, an excrement of blood.
'I passed my hand like a postman's into them;
The information I dropped in at once dropped out.'
'No,' I answered, 'they received your bouquet of
daffodils,
They speak of your feeling for Nature even now,'
He glanced at his watch. I admired a face.
The town clock chimed like a cat in a well.

'Since the private rebellion, the personal turn,
Leads down to the river with the dead cat and dead
dog,
Since the single act of protest like a foggy film
Looks like women bathing, the Irish Lakes, or Saint
Vitus,
Susceptible of innumerable interpretations,
I can only advise a suicide or a resolution.'

'I can resolve,' I answered, 'if you can absolve.
Relieve me of my absurd and abysmal past.'
'I cannot relieve or absolve -- the only absolution
Is final resolution to fix on the facts.
I mean more and less than Birth and Death; I also
mean
The mechanical paraphernalia in between.
'Not you and not him, not me, but all of them.
It is the conspiracy of five hundred million
To keep alive and kick. This is the resolution,
To keep us alive and kicking with strength or joy.
The past's absolution is the present's resolution.
The equation is the interdependence of parts.'




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