Apology for Prophecy (Majority Ode)

(to my loving parents; Claudia Fitzherbert; Toby Buxton; Xavier Yvo Buxton-Fitzherbert; and Allegra Fitzherbert; those of the blood or non-blood who put in an appearance or sent elephantine envoys

The roaming halves have reserved themselves for supplementary birthdays and subordinate odes)


When Tipu rises twenty-one
The elephants will fleshly be
From ‘jet’ to pearl they’ll be transposed
Wash-wallowing the Arabian Sea

And they will carry a loud set
Of kings and queens and minstrelsies
And discord richly trailed will drape
About, till peace reclaim the trees

In Madhya Pradesh. There will ride
‘Grim Dante’, with his settled stare;
Let on that howdah lie a man
Who gardened, ere engrained, his glare

His siesta ne’er unavowed,
Let him sprawl in some queendoms’ sight,
When Tipu rises twenty-one
Love shall step forth in plural rite

And God knows who’ll have married who,
Or where the complex things will knot,
Whether Sister and Hood will strive
With Bolognese pinko rot

But CS Lewis long ago
Pointed out practicalities
Relating to old Edmund’s art –

‘Behold the start of Britomart!
For she is English and bourgeoise
She wonders who could fit the bill
With maximum of pomp and fuss…’

One doesn’t quite know now indeed
How it may be – but the lights yet
Will flicker, Tipu twenty-one,
Microhard, Apple serpentined,
The globe in Toby’s verdant debt.