Made to Measure

Impossible to wield
The acreage of the fabric that unfolded,
Slung from his shoulders like a crumpled field:
The distance from one Christmas to the next
When he was only seven
Was aching there; a foreign city flexed
Among the ripples; a face, the star-shocked heaven
About his flailing arms were shrugged and moulded.

Too heavy to outrun,
Too slow to measure what it underwent,
Though gradually the passage of the sun,
Unmanageable in its train of light,
Seemed almost to respond
As he yanked the yards of stuff in like a kite
And gathered the brocade that trailed beyond
His arms' reach to the scale of measurement,

However strange the weave
That writhed about the working of his hands:
The footage too atrocious to believe,
Printed with corpses; Greece; the falls of salmon;
Her upturned silken wrist
He would have torn out history to examine;
His father's final blessing, which he missed.
However far he comes or where he stands,

At last, and limb by limb,
Contour by contour, that unfolded cape
Settles ever more fittingly on him.
His forehead is the line of the sky's vault,
His shoulders trace the ground,
His palms the ways he wandered by default,
And in his gestures those he knew are found.
What shape the day discovers is his shape.

Stephen Edgar (1951 -

I became interested in the poetry of Stephen Edgar, a prominent Australian poet, after we discussed some of his poems at a recent University of the Third Age meeting. This poem meant little to me on a first reading. It is the sort of poem that is easy to dismiss unless you have time and are willing to apply some thought to the metaphoric meaning. It was only when Stephen Edgar explained how this poem came into being on his Website that I started to value the poem. This is his explanation from his Website –

… the key concept is “experience”, learning about the world, and how children learn to cope with it.

The “brilliant” new image from which the poem took off was the notion of experience as a cape slung from the shoulders. To the young child this cape is far too big and unwieldy: the world is too big to deal with. As the child grows the cape becomes more manageable, even though, as the third stanza details, some of the experience on the cape is cruel and wounding. Eventually, as he ages, he grows into the cape, as it were, his experience and himself are one and the same, a perfect fit. You ultimately make your own world, even as you are made by it.

I found it interesting to equate the life path of experience to that of acquiring a cape. The material continually added to the cape as it is woven with each colourful event to eventual completion. In other words the cape is a metaphoric representation of the life of a person. It is your unique world; it is what you have woven from life. But I question whether it is a perfect fit. Is it comfortable to wear?

The first stanza details the early experiences of childhood. And there is such an acreage nowadays with the flood of information that is readily available for comprehension. Childhood questioning can now be addressed so readily by use of the internet. And influence and undue influence is another matter. So made to measure may not at all be the best fit.

But – what shape the day discovers is his shape (or her shape of course). And I guess the world makes us as much as we make the world. But are we all changing the world for the better. All I can say is may your clothing fit you to the core so that you are satisfied with the product that is you!

Perhaps a cloak would be a better choice. Both are sleeveless overgarments that drape over the shoulders, but the cloak offers more substantial coverage and function, whereas the cape is a more decorative or ceremonial accessory.

Well, you must leave it behind anyway. Or perhaps take it with you metaphorically depending on your spiritual outlook.

Stephen Edgar on Wikipedia