The air is very soft here, where I am. We’ve just had a Coronation, and I’ve come away from London so I can appreciate it, as one would a work of art. And a work of art it was. Spiritual, musical, historical art.
In the nights before the ceremony, I caught glimpses – on the television – of disrespectful things. Even my own ‘skit’ on Lansdowne MS 285 might be interpreted as disrespectful, by some. If so, I am sorry.
But excuse me while I gasp! Did I know, as I studied that British Library manuscript, that Lady Fiona Lansdowne would be there, accompanying the new Queen? Did I know that Pretty Yende, who I last saw singing in beautiful Napoli, decked out in Lemon yellow, would be there too?
I understand the King has a great sense of humour, and one of the wonders of British satire is that we are allowed to have it.
A gentleman called Michael, who was from Ireland, but had lived here in England a long time, was reading the newspapers while we watched the ancient ceremony here where I am. It turned out he had lost his son in a joy-riding car accident. Michael also suffers from epilepsy and shouldn’t drink alcohol. He was on the lemonade; I was on the really hard stuff: water. Michael was particularly interested in the satirical cartoons in the papers he was reading, I could see from the way he showed these to a friend. After a while he stood up, in the place where I am (where it was sunny on Coronation day). He was troubled, and left the room, unable to be near the rites any more. Later he spoke to me a little and I listened. He was full of full of jokes and laughter and aphorisms denoting Irish Wisdom about Life and his life, some of it cruel.
Am I destined always to feel conflicted? To feel that my father was right to be someone who knew that much of what has happened in the past still needs to be addressed, whilst at the same time, myself seeing that many are doing their best in a complex world.
To those of you who might say that we should do away with the monarchy I would say – look to those sections of the Coronation ceremony where diversity took over. A Hindu gives a special ring; a Seikh gives a special glove; and I would urge you to think about what these cultures mean in terms of King Charles’ knowledge about this land and the world. We are looking at a farmer king, and a Green one. India and the Punjab are ex-imperial emblems, yes, but Asia is a place where climate change marches on, largely unchecked.
Michael’s land, Ireland, is a place where the English language bends and folds around soft-spoken thoughts, hidden knowledge translated into poetry. As soon as I saw lines 31-32 of Lansdowne 285 I thought of W.B. Yeats ‘He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven’. The line is about new ‘Ray cloth’ being laid down in the cathedral for the King’s feet, and I wondered if the poet had seen a ‘Form’ of Coronation in the way I had. And I wondered, in all that spiritual commitment expressed, whether King Charles was wishing for the cloths of heaven too. I think he probably was. He seems a man who wants to bring things together, not to divide. I felt, amidst a lot of debate about what made him the happiest, that the moment when he smiled at the group of faith leaders on his way out, that this was the best. The Welsh Cross of the procession, carrying splinters of the True Cross, was beautiful. And that’s where this king is. Not at the bottom of signed undertakings declaring things firmly this way or that. There were sticks of Equity and Mercy… And the new Queen is a charity worker too. And we should go with that. Indeed, I’ve just seen Prince William confirm this idea about his father: service crossing all faith and culture boundaries is the name of the game.
If this seems like a series of disjointed thoughts and feelings, then that’s how these special days felt for me.
I’m sorry about the rain, especially on the marching soldiers, but then, as I said for somebody else’s podcast recently (and the king echoed this, I believe), our rain is – for the most part – a blessing. It’s rhythms don’t swing in the way it does in other places. It has a poetic beat all of its own.
Lansdowne 285 lines 31-32:
“and he shall go upon new Ray cloth laid under his feet on the ground”
W.B. Yeats, ‘He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven’
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.