CAROUSELS

Been thinking about it, the carousel, for some time now –

the time elapsed since stepping off and moving on.

As these things went, it was, I recall, really not so bad:

it travelled apace, albeit round and round, whether you sat

astride a prancing filly, nostrils flared, a dinky little racing car

or an open top ancient Roman battle chariot,

complete with seat belts and rubber hub blades.

You knew precisely who you were on a carousel;

knew exactly where you stood, and that was good.

 

The horses, as well as round and round, moved up and down –

such fun (they were also known as merry-go-rounds) –

some had minders dressed up as clowns, who sounded

cross when people ignored the signs that wagged fingers at

standing up, standing around, riding no-hands, smuggling

pets on board (even dogs on leads, even sleepy Pekinese).

The thing is that it brings you back again, back to the start;

so back you go, until you feel no longer welcome and it’s

intimated you might consider all your options, given you are

guilty of indecorous old age or simply shaking, just a little.

 

Once off the carousel, they say you can stay as you are –

if you know what that means – or build a brand-new you;

there’s a pair of XL overalls you might care to wear,

standard issue, in beige, black or blue. Unlike the carousel,

there are no clear proscriptions – in fact no rules at all –

but this entails no kind of freedom, not until you have

fixed your gaze on the face of fear, the failing of body and

fading of mind, shouted out a full defiance of each of them and

each has stepped aside, pushing open wide the iron gates

that warn, for the first time, to be watchful of your unknown self.

 

In recent years, a slightly younger, slightly fitter player

has combined the roles of soothsayer and dragon slayer,

examined every layer of wants, wishes, niceties and needs

that will blow around your head and seek all your attention;

no mention made of progress on any graph or chart, no

flagging up of where lies best and where lurks worst.

He will work without calibration of words, of thought,

of deeds of any sort, move the goalposts further than before,

reserving the right to halt at the door (or put ashore)

the less robust and those aged sixty years or more.

 

He will, if pressed, contemplate the irony of

leaden limbs and minds barring entry, now that there is

no modern equivalent of Sisyphus, condemned for full life

to roll the heaviest rocks uphill, one after another, nor

the skills acquired by lifelong devotion once required

to navigate Scylla and Charybdis at higher tides that

hide their size and razor ridges, perhaps at darkest night.

Oh, the ravages of peace, prosperity and pleasantries,

the weariness of feasts where famine is but a word, of

fine wine on every table, never leavened with ordinary water.

 

But irony’s no match, at the physical or any other level –

save only the entirely cerebral – for the segregationists,

the race supremacists, who travel in circles on the carousels.

Taught hate for free, they’ll smash your gate, entomb you

in some basement room, crack legs already shackled by

deviant genes; then close the doors, double the guard,

change all the locks. They’d like to wind the clocks right back,

then trust them to those whose gentlest flower is the prickly rose

(or one of that class that, long linked with battle, might

share the sweet water with cavalry horses).

 

So back to horses. Do I dream of carousels – or

do the fillies’ nostrils truly flare for fear of someone

stepping on for reasons far from clear; or for fear of

someone leaving, laurels clinging, busy breezes blowing high,

stepping off and wondering exactly where he is and why?