Past the Corner of My Eye
or 'Falling South of Faërie'
I hold suspicion that the fairies love me less Than I always thought they surely did. I hold a slow and bleeding panic o' my soul; I listen more and feel my hands go very still. I am a coward and my ink too quickly dries; I am a coward who has clung to silver lies While past the corner of my eye a river swept Naïveté and all its vision softly by. And are there fairies in Australia, I wonder? And will my English soul be able to befriend them? By all accounts I did grow up in part in Fairy Land, But I have wandered far upon a southern road Through scorching deserts and past many severed hands. This cowards' path is filled with far too many plans, Yet under glory like the Arthurs sharp traverse I know I cannot from all hope just now disband. I hold suspicion that the fairies love me not For all my grasping in their many-sundered realm. I hold a slow and building panic for my soul; Now I'm blinded I just long to taste it all. I am a coward who has let his pen run dry; I feel an impulse building now to cease to try, However much this goes against the grain of 'me', And scatters all again, my blazing, bloomin' pride. I am a coward who has clung to silver lies While past the corner of my hungry, haunted eye, A river softly swept my innocence on by.
"And are there fairies in Australia, I wonder?
And will my English soul be able to befriend them?"
I love this part, Peter, and at the risk of sounding crazy, it's something I wonder about very much. (For example, I was born and grew up in Appalachia, but that's Shawnee land; my ancestors came over here only two generations back so where am I more from? Some place in Europe I've hardly ever been to, or some new world in which I grew up but have no ancestry?)
There are so many people living in this in-between.
Loved the photos, too, by the way.
It isn't easy to understand why a man might be concerned about whether fairies love him. The person seems to pass from delusion for a moment as naivete passes by like a river. There is sentiment for a distant land where fairies dwell, and he may cling to the idea while sustaining pressure from deserts and divergent plans about what to do or where to go. There seems to be an intensification of meaningless or at least a consideration to stop putting in effort, even if pride is sacrificed. Maybe the silver lies are representative of conceptions of the world that are not deep enough to satisfy an adult who cannot unsee what he has seen in life. Phew, this hit home for me somewhat.