Wormley

Planted : It isn't clear from the manuscripts when this piece originated. It has the temperament of older reflection. It asks, "Do I carry this burden alone?". It is an ever harder task with time. The author is, metaphorically, an old sturdy tree on a mountain seen from a beach below. Viewing north, the upward branches seem to support the North Star and thus the heavens. The sky, so seen, seems to pivot on the tree itself. Is it the duty of this lone tree to sustain the motion of the universe? Lonely and rigid in a singular task of duty, the tree looks with guarded envy at the playful morning fog that rolls from off the ocean and up the lower slopes of the mountain before it melts away, at the sand piper that plays both on the sand and in flight, at storms that can come and go, at the seasons, and at change in general. It asks, "Am I of ONE CHOICE? Prayer : Probably with Katherine in his arms this thought, "God, If you must take her, please take me with her." In determining that Gavin and Katherine were not Romeo and Juliet, it is well to begin here. Unrequited love long antedates Shakespeare. The power is in the nature of the conflict and in the eventual resolution. These are very different stories. Promise : There are no notes on this translation. From the original, the going opinion is that the 'SHE' in the poem is opportunity. In many ways McGuiness blames himself for Caitlin's death. His father repeatedly warned him of the range of evil of which the 'Royalists' [sic] were capable. As the official powers were, young Gavin thought, constrained to the 'law', really, what could they do as long as you don't overtly break the law? The answer was an intolerable lesson. As in 'Bitter Lessons', some lessons do not educate but rather destroy the pupil. Would it have been better to have been quiet and gone along with the 'captivity'?