This poem was first published in The Herald on the morning of the Princess of Wales’s funeral, September 6, 1997.
DIANA
Gold-mopped woman of gazelle grace,
Goddess of hunting, who were yourself
The fatal quarry of the paparazzi dogs,
Now you will be aspic-ed in martyrdom,
Your shallows and your depths
Denied all further exploration.
~
Would-be Queen of Hearts (did that
Pretension grate on other viewer-voyeurs?),
You were also the princess of pop
Who mingled with the meretricious
And used the operating theatre as
Photo opportunity for doe-eyed concern.
~
The wounded eyes were well made-up.
And yet beneath the studied vulnerability
No doubt the real thing ached. In turn emotionally
Failed by parent, husband, lovers (till the last),
You seemed at once manipulative media star
And lost child crying for affection.
~
Perhaps all you needed was a prince’s love
To hold you to the English gentlewoman’s
Doggy, horsey, polo-watching path.
Such simple resolution was withheld.
You could rouse millions to chivalry
But not command the ultimate concern of one.
~
Still, if your acts of charity
Seemed sometimes superficial gestures
Between your latest sybaritic ploys,
You touched those deemed unclean
And hugged the maimed and dying,
And in so doing showed a courtesy and kindness
Beyond the armchair altruism of your critics.
~
The ambiguity of your motives was always,
Anyway, irrelevant to your perceived humanity.
Now from the minefield of your life,
Your unshattered image rises,
Immaculate, unassailable; at last
Queen of Hearts without equivocation.
Lesley Duncan, September 1997
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