This is not one of my ancestors, but a goosequarterer. If there is one thing the Internet is short of, it’s pictures of goosequarterers, so I am plugging the gap. I hope the goose was dead before it was quartered.  This picture was taken yesterday in the Great Hospital, Norwich, which also features in its grounds a swan pit. Does the RSPB know about this? I do hope not.

The Great Hospital is an impressive place. Dot and I were shown round it as part of the Waterways fortnight: we were in a group of about 20 which happened to include a guy from the last Developing Consciousness course and, even more surprisingly, a guy who e-mails me regular items for my column. Well, irregular items, more likely. Despite the antiquity of the picture on my page, he recognised me. There was no escape.

It was quite cold by the swan pit, and I noticed a complete absence of swans. This was strange because the swan pit is sadistically just not long enough for a swan to take off, and it’s surrounded by railings and a slope. So the swans must have developed a secret tunnel to the Wensum, where they appear in quite large clumps. Last Friday some lanterns were launched on the Wensum as part of the Waterways opening, and the swans were very suspicious of them. Today I wrote this poem:

LANTERNS ON THE WENSUM

Dim, silken lights launch
silently into the twilight
barely breaking the lukewarm surface
of accepted lies –
inconstant stream,
damp, forceless field
filled with mud and weeds:
a trap for swimmers

The lanterns float out quiet but insistent
still small voices
confronting unseen storms –
holes hidden in the featureless river
that masks eternity

In the flat tide they seem to fail
but swans from the nearby pit
dark angels robed in deceptive white
see them for what they are –
draw back

There is power in the smallest light
floating in dark matter
resurrecting reality
drop by drop