Henrietta Maria Prepares to Depart

The important things, the seductive things -

prisoners now in a blustery Cornish castle.

She watches a hungry troop march across the square,

discards the obligation to be who she was.

Is duty the enemy of enjoyment ?

she says and recalls a masque in which she played

the role of a pregnant queen –

pregnant with a nation’s joy –

who escaped the angry mob

through a white horse’s vale.

Her handmaidens brush a common dress,

tie a hessian bonnet for her to wear.

They stand together now, her image

reflected in an old pewter mirror –

no lacework across her shoulders

observes the intricate web of her God.

There is a dog and there are jewels and there is

silver plate ready to be traded for muskets and might.

She laughs: her dwarf is tugging at her hem.

He is gracious, in this, her melancholy hour.

A boat waits to receive her and she prays

with palm-beads: one, two, three times.

Her hair, once perfumed, is now a surrogate,

fiery as the inmates of this castle’s bedlam.

To leave this temporary room, to listen to

an ungracious God who roars against the sea –

What does He say ? What does He mean ?

A king will pile his crown at the gate of his grave.