The Forest - Canto V
1.
Brother Malcolm was astounded. "Is that all?
Then what about the houses and yourself?
For surely you must have a story of your own to tell."
"Indeed," said Gabriel, "but that is a more complicated one
and not entirely pleasant, for, you see, it is a tragedy."
"A tragedy? How come? How is it possible?
In this consummate paradise of peace and harmony?
You must be kidding. That would be the utterly supremest paradox."
"I am not joking, although I can understand your incredulity,
but all things here, as you can see, are utterly incredible,
but on the other hand, my friend, there's nothing
nor in heaven nor on earth or in the seas that is impossible.
2.
The first one who arrived here, as you know, was Manuel,
a stranded Spaniard from Alicante, wayward lost
and something of an exile, who around the world
sought desperately for a chance of a retreat
from humankind and all their troubles, strifes and sorrows.
He came here just getting out of town
and seeking for a possibility for a recluse
to get away from baseness, vanity, vulgarity and superficiality.
He lost his way, of course, and ended up by chance in here,
where he found every possibility of what he always had been looking for.
He stayed, of course, and built the first small cottage,
which he called 'The House', for he was skilful as a craftsman.
3.
Here he lived alone until one day there was a couple,
young and innocent, eloping from their families
who would not let them have each other –
by restricting them and setting up conditions,
failing to accept that love is unconditional.
They came here leaving all civilization far behind
and hoping they would be forgotten by their own and all society
and were received most overwhelmingly and heartily by Manuel,
who by that time had begun to long for company.
That couple was my father David and my mother Celia.
Of course, the house of Manuel was too little for all three,
so Manuel and David built together one more better place
for what they hoped would soon become a family.
4.
A shepherd was the fourth one to arrive,
a man who had been prosecuted but for nothing
but his innocence, which he had failed to prove,
and he was forced to leave society and just abscond from justice
which had proved abortive in his case.
His name was Daniel, and that's where the tragedy began,
for he fell hopelessly in love with Celia.
The problem would have been avoided if not Celia
also desperately fell in love with him.
5.
I was expected then already, but before I had been born
it was a fact that Celia already had known her lover,
while my father David had resigned in sadness more or less.
He built the last house here a bit in further up the forest,
which you can not see from here, to live there by himself.
So I was born not only out of wedlock but of double wedlock,
since I was received not by my father but by Daniel."
"And did your father not object? Was there no jealousy,
no natural defence for his so violated fatherhood?"
"There was no quarrel, only conversation.
'Celia,' he said, 'why did you do it?'
'David, love is not resistible. It is, as you well know,
completely unconditional, and Daniel took me by a storm.
I fell in love with him, and there was nothing I could do about it.'
'But our son, did you not owe his father any loyalty?'
'A child comes with the stork. It is a gift by providence,
no matter who the father is, and is a person independent
of his father and his mother spiritually from his birth.
You have no right of property to him, neither have I,
and neither have you any right of property to me.
We are all independent but with some responsibility
towards our son and for each other in survival
but as friends and without bonds.
We came here to be free, and there is nothing more important
than that freedom for our lives and our community.'
And David left the others to be lone and sad
while Celia and Daniel stayed together
to assume the full responsibility for me
and for my well-being and health as infant.
6.
Even in a paradise like this,
life can become monotonous and boring.
One day, longing for a change, my mother Celia
took a walk and left the forest,
just to see if the world outside still was there.
It was, and with a vengeance.
As she passed a field, there was a bunch of villains
sitting in the shadow of a tree
and almost lurking in a ditch.
They were the first new people she had seen for years,
so she accosted them quite naturally.
She had been for years among most intimate and trusted friends
in this the safest of environments in all the world
and therefore was incapable of thinking any evil
or suspicion about any man, but was instead
and on the contrary uplifted by at last a meeting with new people
utterly ignoring and forgetting they were total strangers.
As bad luck would have it, they were lurid strangers too
with minds bent only on their bestial desires,
desperate as bandits and quite ruthless in their lawlessness.
7.
With joy she joined them with her waistlong golden hair,
blue eyes and dressed in white like any virgin angel,
hoping for some friendly conversation with new friends.
But they were overcome by her spontaneous beauty,
and exchanging looks and understanding they were all together
of the same mind with but one idea, they ravished her.
They left her bleeding in the ditch with torn clothes,
dirty and unconscious where she lay as dead.
The evening came and then the night, and she did not wake up
until the morning, freezing terribly.
8.
There was a young man then coming slowly down the road
together with his cow that he was leading.
As he saw a strange young lady in a critical condition
sticking up her head out from a ditch,
he wondered whether he was dreaming or experiencing a fay
or banshee or whatever, but she had a voice
and definitely needed help, and that decided him.
"Who are you?" She just shook her head.
"How come that you are here?" She did not know.
And gradually it dawned upon him:
she had had a terrible calamity and shock
and in the process lost her memory.
9.
At home among her lovers in the forest
they of course began to worry as to where she was
and why she stayed away so long.
"She must have left us," David said the third day,
but both Daniel and Manuel thought differently,
that something must have happened to her,
and on the fourth morning Daniel left
to search for her and left me to my father.
Daniel was never heard of any more and nevermore came back.
After a week my father left me to the care of Manuel
and went out searching too but promised to be back.
10.
My mother had been taken care of well by Joseph,
as the young man's name was who was with the cow,
but she was restless and would not remain at home with him
one day beyond the restoration of her health
but earnestly insisted on that she must find again
what she had lost. She didn't even have a hunch
about what had occurred to her or anything out of her history.
The only thing she knew and knew for certain was
that she had lost a priceless thing that had to be recovered.
Nothing could restore her memory, no therapy, no rest,
no cure, no deep research into her mind.
Her grave amnesia seemed complete and hopeless,
but she would go searching for her losses anyway –
a quest and search in total blindness in the dark.
But Joseph felt responsibility and would assist her
following her destiny as if it was his own.
They had already left the forest far behind
as he went down with her, down to his farm in the next county,
and as now they wandered forth, they went unknowingly
completely in the wrong direction.
11.
As they wandered aimlessly at random,
they one sunny afternoon came down and faced the sea.
"I think," said Celia, "that what I am searching for
might not be here in England." Joseph aquiesced,
and consequently they embarked upon a ship
that would cross over into Flanders.
But they were persecuted by bad luck
as suddenly a gale came sweeping from Biscaya,
an outrageous storm that brought the ship into the North Sea
where it perished in the tempest of the waves.
The last thing Joseph did was saving Celia's life
by giving her a flotsam that would carry her
while he was miserably drowned.
Unconscious once again, she landed on the Danish coast.
When she woke up, well taken care of by a valiant Dane,
she could remember nothing from before her waking up in Denmark.
All she knew was that she was in search of something most important
that could never be abandoned, interrupted or deserted.
Meanwhile David came exhausted back to us here in the forest.
He had found a trace but feared that Celia had left England.
He went out again to go on searching endlessly if need must be.
(to be continued.)
Poetry by Christian Lanciai
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Written on 2008-09-18 at 09:54
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