First Friend

Poem by Steve Day

Fox by name, George by birth,
Earth-Quaker
elevated to silent spokesman caught
in the fault line of a civil war.
Let us live simply, a postscript Penn
of beatitudes maintaining a
silence towards slavery louder than
fear of a good-god inhabiting
the crucible colours hung on Calvary.

George goes to ground and he is
Earth-Quaker.
The Lord of The Dance is vixen’s friend.
Take off that leather tunic and
wear plain grey skirts of calico and hemp.
What Fox becomes is invisible.
It is women who are breaking the scent
of canine. On the wall a portrait;
the pack of hounds hung in an art gallery.

Fox chased by the dogs of war,
Earth-Quaker,
peace maker, tract teller, the pitched
epistles of a newborn Paul of
Tarsus sending denunciation to witch
finders and tongue branders.
But even he chose not to see a Black
on White plantation and free
the sugar fields of Barbados from slavery.

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