PRINCE CALF Poem by John Leefmans

We were princes, ‑ Rev. said -
because we were by heaven elected.
Stealthily I looked about in class
to see who else had been selected,
and found his assertion rather crass.
Myself I did however think a prince:
When she saw me, the Princess regally waved
again and again when from church I passed by,
and granted me Her Most Royal smile.
‘I have been chosen' I thought with half
a mind, although her mother once named me ‘Calf'.

My mother thought the little swain
who daily would, even through rain
before daybreak go to church, a little saint.
She did not know, that shivering, I
would only receive dew and blessings
on the way home, causing the sun
to rise and me to be anointed; ‑
and crowned, anointed and consecrated I
would stride on cumulus clouds beneath the sky
in an odour of Limacol and sanctity.

When I had already drowned,
She moved elsewhere, and deposed,
I reverted to the rabble of cronies.
I now hardly ever went out and only
to church if compelled, with pain.
My father said: ‘He smells himself.'

But none saw that the prince dethroned,
a crippled calf for life, would painfully
hop between one thought only.