Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan

A stone monument

gazing upon the water

grass gets greener

Takeo Nakamura

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The following came in a spam email today, so I thought I would plagiarize it as it makes a nice poem. After searching I found that it is originally from a 19th century book – Carnac’s Folly, Volume 3 by Gilbert Parker (Wikipedia enlightens: Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker, 1st Baronet PC (November 23, 1862 – September 6, 1932), known as Gilbert Parker, Canadian novelist and British politician, was born at Camden East, Addington, Ontario, the son of Captain J. Parker, R.A.). Amusing to think that a long lost Canadian novelist should be the source of spam.

The Gift of Reading

With his own face,
as it had been in his youth,
though his mother’s look
was also there-transforming,
illumining.

He had a pang as he saw the two
at the close of his meeting filtering
out into the great retort of the
world.

Then it was that he had the impulse
to go to the woman’s home,
express his sorrow,
and in some small sense
wipe out his wrong by
offering her marriage.

He had not gone.

He knew of Carnac’s success in
the world of Art; and how
he had alienated his reputed father
by an independence revolting
to a slave of convention.

He had even bought, not
from Carnac, but from a dealer,
two of Carnac’s pictures and a statue of
a riverman. Somehow the years
had had their way with him.

He had at long last realized that material things
were not the great things of life,
and that imagination, however productive,
should be guided by
uprightness of soul.

One thing was sure, the boy had never
been told who his father was. That Barouche knew.
He had the useful gift of reading
the minds of people in their faces.
From Carnac’s face, from Carnac’s
mother’s face, had come to him the real story.

He knew.

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