Poem for the Nonce

Incident at Glozel, 1929

Should I hold against you a youthful error

Against a career so successful in almost every way?

Almost without exception you have been heaped with honour

And even today many of your innovations hold sway.

You knew how to dig into the prehistoric past

And discovered skeletons that shook the foundation

Of received paradigms, you knew that nothing lasts

So long as new discoveries are made and the fun

Was in demolishing stodgy points of view, the terror

In being afraid to change your mind; so let me say,

With some humility, that what you did should never

Have happened, when you slipped into the pristine clay

That painted pebble, and when caught out, you laughed,

And still later trivialized the damage done—you laughed.

The doctor saw you, pointed his finger, the photographer

Caught you in the very moment of your embarrassment.

Later when you came to the Holy Land, a priest who meant

To put you at your ease, made a joke, and forever after

You never mentioned the incident, or brushed it aside.

There was a career to make, a puzzle in the ground to solve,

And why bother about those little people. Years revolve

And they are all forgotten, the local doctor who died

Unheralded, the peasant boy who grew old in shame,

And all the others whose lives were blemished, hurt

By a little foolish trick you played.  The lame

Old Jew carried to the site in a bullock cart,

What if he almost fainted and spent his final days

Brooding over the insult, who cares what some old pedant says?