Canterbury Tales
Prologue
When in April the kind showers fall
grooming March who was parched to the root and all,
filling every vein with the liquor and the power
to inject life therein and grow many flowers.
Zephyr, too gassy and bloated for words, blows
heathen gusts into every husk, every rusted heath,
while the tender crops, and the young sun,
middle-aged scum, sleeps —
and wired warblers
drone
on through
the night with dead eyes open-wide.
(Coaxed by nature, we rampage lightly)
men and women-folk alike, palm-reading pilgrims,
reed-playing palmers, we long to go on long pilgrimages
to seek out new Strands and pay respect
to the old shrines well-known in distant lands,
from every shire's end
of England to Canterbury we go,
to find the great leader
and bliss-out our souls.
