Mr Wistful
Mr Wistful? No
not one of our
regulars
comes in often
enough though
sits there, shy
easy not to notice
between the lines
deep in thought
always looking
a bit moonstruck
as if he'd rather
be somewhere
else
© the Revd James M McPherson
Maryborough Q
Written at Vaughan Park 19 September 2008
Wistfulness is a melancholy born of displacement: either nostalgia, or loss of previous joy (the present has displaced the past); or melancholy born of hopefulness (the future will displace the past). In my VP Scholar's Lecture in 2008 (titled “A Wistfulness in Worship”), I explored a Eucharistic wistfulness. This poem was written at Vaughan Park at that time – a tentative resumption of my poetry-writing after a lapse of many years.
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