Let this, then, be my object of obsession
my indiscreet fetish
my own Privy Counsel
my recurrent peccadillo:
lay out the leather
for the naked workers
to skilfully put together
by patched moonlight;
and trim and thimble-stitch their clothes,
lit by eyesight and attentive candle,
in return for the grace
of a mid-life insight:
to do the deeds done
for those who can never repay them
and admit the singing of the rule:
the rule of the love of the doing.
Dominic Mathews
