A poem made for Rachel
Ivette forwards this after one of our conversations – her house is dotted with a few poignant sayings that all leave a lasting impression – she has had this one in her drawer for twenty years, the author now unknown:
They’ve taken & burnt your caravan, they’ve thrown away your pots and pans and your half-mended wicker chairs.
They’ve pulled down your sleeves and buttoned up your collar.
They’ve forced you to sleep beneath a self-respecting roof with no chinks to let the stars through.
But they haven’t caught me yet! Come! Come away!
Heaven preserve me from littleness and pleasantness and smoothness.
Give me glaring vices, and great glaring virtues, but preserve me from the neat little neutral ambiguities.
Be wicked, be brave, be drunk, be reckless, be dissolute, de despotic, be an anarchist, be a suffragette, be anything you
like–but for pity’s sake be it to the top of your bent.
Live fully, live passionately, live disastrously. Let’s live, you and I, as none have ever lived before.