We are the worm in the wood!

More water slides past. I am surrounded by swirling fog, gazing down at the black, black water, tickled white by the ship's swift passing. A line from Kipling's Pict Song keeps coming back to me: "We are the worm in the wood!" I am very much the outsider on this boat full of Americans: hovering just out of sight, in the shadows, disappearing as soon as I'm seen. I am the worm in the wood!

A Pict Song - Rudyard Kipling

Unbeliever


Don’t turn your head

when shadows flicker,

deceiving the eye.

By the time you turn,

I’ll be gone.

Who am I? You know,

you’ve always known.

I am

the young one, carelessly laughing

        at your fear.

I am

the lost one, wilfully straying

        from The Path.

I am

the old one, fiercely living

        where you have bowed your head.

I am

the grim one, always alone,

        facing the storm

                embracing the gale

                        smiling into the teeth of the tempest.

I am

the forgotten one, remember me?

How you could have been …

Memorial Day

Memorial Day and I'm in the place where the revolution started, the most Old World of all American cities, Boston. It wasn't Americans against British - it was a clash of two world views; working and middle class against ruling class and old privilege. I would've fought and died against the redcoats, without once feeling I was betraying the countries of my forefathers. Ironically, those red-coated soldiers were as much victims of the abuses of the powerbrokers as the men they killed and were killed by. And surely the revolution here succeeded because of simple geography - the same sentiments were present in Scotland and Ireland but they were too close to England to be allowed similar success.