A green and pleasant land?

And did those feet in ancient days, walk upon England’s green and pleasant land. What is fantasy … and who can understand? Who can see inside the secrets of a heart and mind? Of frustrated hopes and unreachable desires. All is chalk, dry, and senseless, lying unfulfilled under the shallow soils and wispy grass. And do people thrive here? With what? For what? How do they make a fist of it? With their sharing, their openness, stubbornness, carelessness or just pure genius. So what of me, trapped in my locked tower, locked in, not out; have I the key, the password which will untrap me from myself? In this maze of life, where decisions are forced on me, taken for me, presumed or just written in the future and in history, where do I make my bed? Is it at work, in play, in thought or deed, with a spade or a mouse … so much to ask, so little time to ponder. 

This confusion is of my own making. I have read Marx and Engels, Guttierez and Boff, Manley Hopkins, Thomas and Tolstoy, and what do they do? Simply set even more challenges for this world. Europe is divided between those who want, those who have and those who dream. The have-nots are forgotten. As for the States, they have their monopoly on power, right, freedom and communication. Who cares? More and more, we walk on by. It is in the East that the war is waged between the Arab and the Jew, the European and the Moslem, the Sunni and the Shia. And ideas? Do we have time to debate? Oh no! Our time is spent, wasted on petty tasks, clothes, shopping and TV. Where is our world? Dylan got it right when he said, “Dead men, naked they shall be one with the wind and the west moon!" 

Roll on spring into summer. Where will we be this autumn? With the devil and the deep blue sea, or in that garden of mellow fruitfulness? Only time will tell!