Heroes and heroines WA 3 May 2018
1: William
William Shakespeare is a factory of heroes and heroines, every play, nay, every cast, brings forth great wealth, wisdom and tragic fates: Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo, Juliette. Their names we cannot forget, their trials and tribulations, duels, plots and peregrinations. In awe we watch, the centuries pass, do not weaken the magic, the intrigue. Mesmerised, we still laugh, or groan or shudder or quake, sigh in bliss, pure pleasure, at the verse, the profoundness, Stirling characters in a show, life-like heroes, life-like heroines. Shakespeare was no fool, of heroic bent, he put himself in the limelight, built his own heritage, his own stardom, lest we forget, the Globe theatre glows on, testimony to all that.
2: Fools
Those men, who went to war,
Were they heroes, or fools,
Blinded by duty, driven by hunger?
And the women who stayed at home:
Were they heroines? They lived those years
In hardship, in deprivation.
Who remembers them?
I pin pictures of women on my wall,
Anonymous, their names I cannot recall.
All are heroines to me – life is a battle,
Every day a struggle, a war on words,
A pull beneath my feet.
I hang on to the carpet
Accept no defeat.
The boys come running in, bloody,
Snotty, their knees all scraped.
Little soldiers, I watch them grow,
Tender shoots, a life ahead,
And I think on this:
Not yet heroes,
Not yet fools.
3: Heroines
When I was young, I needed the stimulation of a role-model, a hero, a heroine, someone outstanding, who did courageous things, broke down barriers of conservatism, hedged-in bourgeois life. Edith Cavell, Florence Nightingale, Alexander David-Neel accompanied me in those years, as tutor, a steady guide, stars to follow. Did I take their traits, their determination? Most surely not. I live in other times but women like them made it possible for me to say to my mother: I will go my way. She wrung her hands, sympathised, kept quiet. Now, I see, she longed to live how own life, like me.
4: My hero
At the end of day, when all is quiet,
Soft grey gives way to night
Flames crackle, orange roars
You surely are my hero
You surely are my hero
Now that the fire is out.