The Grand Undertaking
...a most beautiful art
...a most profitable industry
...a most fit enterprise for gentlemen
Walhachin promotional pamphlet 1909
An earthly Paradise will be realized here
the cultivation of apple trees will benefit men
of vision with wealth beyond their dreams, here
in the New World, where the Union Jack proudly flies.
An American engineer and a Scottish Lord
the first creating infrastructure on scientific principles
the second creating stable social order on feudal principles
together purveyors of a Grand Undertaking on benchland by the river.
Walhachin
boasts a swimming pool
a dance hall with a horsehair-sprung floor
a grand hotel, several manor houses, and thousands of apple trees.
All of this
in a parched desert
all of this crafted, supported
by the labour of indentured hundreds - serfs.
The Lord
and his fine gentlemen direct
from screened verandas in the summer
near roaring whole-log fires in the winter.
Interrupting fine-wine dinners
gracious conversations with elegant ladies
to ensure the minions scurry to comply promptly
the lower classes - like children, you know - short attention spans.
So it goes
as Edward (God Save) comes to the throne
golden years spinning out blissfully, diligently
calmly, quietly - until a storm arises from Sarajevo.
Which engulfs Europe,
and the thunder is heard
even in faraway Walhachin
whereupon the Lord lifts his head.
The entire colony is called
to arms, two months of drill practice
marching between the blossoming apple trees
a Walhachin company, all the able-bodied men, led by the Lord.
For Britain and the King
they sail to France, where the Lord presents his sword
to sage generals who approve of the pipes and drums, kilts
a spit-and-polish outfit, send them on, immediately, to Vimy Ridge.
Led slow-march
by skirling pipes up the hill
lugubrious cannon fodder - to a man, cut down
cut down dead and in minutes a decade-long colonial dream ends.
The apple trees remain
tended, for a season, by the women
until the terrible news comes home, whereupon
they lose heart and hope, grieve together, then drift apart.
Some apple trees remain still
tenacious, obstinate, in mute testament
to the by-gone values of willful, self important,
imperiously deluded men who'd do it all, even the slow-march, again.
jimmy shaker writes this
