The Blue Devils
by Sarah Benjamin
They are swirling,
Dervish,
Blue and black and black and blue
They are rising
Storm waves of
An indigo sea
And me?
I’m up to my neck in them
Up for air
Then under again
So far from home
Deep in my England’s
Green woods
Tamed
By Capable hands
But even there
They rise relentless
The blue devils can
Dance anywhere
In the dust motes that float
In sudden shafts of light
From high library windows
In the headache
Hit of mould
From old books
They climb inspiring spires
To whirl and swirl
Around my ambitions
Buzzing blue bottles deafening
My waking dreams
Swarming,
Blue skirts flaying
They circle me
Until I walk myself
Free
Footnotes:
1. Trevelyan, L. (2006). A Very British Family: The Trevelyans and Their World, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, p.153
2.Trevelyan, G.M. (1949) Clio, A Muse and Other Essays, Longmans, Green and Co, London, New York and Toronto, p.1
George Trevelyan wrote in a letter to his brother Charles, “Half your life you are in good spirits and can make yourself delightful to anyone, especially to the family, while the other half you are in the Blue Devils…”[1]
Reflecting on walking, he wrote, “I have two doctors, my left leg and my right. When body and mind are out of gear (and those twin parts of me live at such close quarters that the one always catches melancholy from the other) I know that I shall have only to call in my doctors and I shall be well again.”[2]