Wednesday, 19 September 2012

A Portrait of the Artist with a Tea Treat Bun by John Canfield


on a St. Ives beach, circa eighty-two.

The palette used for conjuring this scene
is rain washed vermilion for the bathing hut,

trawler boat blue for the wind-whipped cagoule
and the sand is anaemic as egg timer grain.

But there in the centre, firmly clasped
between two hands, a bun the size

of a small boy’s head emits a seemingly
radioactive glow of saffron,

lurid yellow that emanates
like the Christ child’s halo in devotionals

or the fulgent beam of a Davy Lamp.
Then, bored into this bright yeast wall

are currants as black as Wesley’s gown
and as large and round as the fifteen besants  

on Kernow’s crest, an inversion of
the black and gold above Onen Hag Oll,

and encased in a shell that subtly shifts
with the light, like a gemstone, from copper to bronze.

Sunday brought grape juice and communion cubed bread
but on this day the taste of Methodism was good.




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