Poem
for C.
d, undrilled
rock
Had it been
wanted how had
High dungeon was a feeling I knew well
When mockery from men weighed on my soul.
As your Prime Minister I went through hell,
If I can say so without hyperbowl.
I am building my roof of turf my peaty sheath
a coveted blanket roll me up in it and I go out
like a light like the wisp rising at night
that country people swear they see and steer clear of
Thinking of you now as I pass by the Riverside Cathedral
I remember how year after year we made time for lunch –
you standing under the big vase of flowers where we would meet
1.
Anywhere’s more homely
than this field day to mortality,
accumulating severances
that wrangle distance
like before and after’s rosary of rue.
So, summoned by that call across the wide
And complicated city, pressed
And yet reluctant to arrive,
We found among the ranks of the distressed,
This cactus looks as if, on a reef,
it could be neighbour to sponge, equally at ease
under the sea – or strange as some tentacled hydra
on the window ledge, free
of quickening leaves.
Digging in the garden I found a moth
albinoed on a piece of bark by the fence.
Those were my radiation days; it was good
to lay down the spade and kneel in the soil.
'Young Male Lyrebird at the Illawarra Treetop Fly', a new poem by Judith Beveridge
He has his medley nearly ready. He has pieced together
his own fantasia, even if just from the sound of an owl
regurgitating a pellet of bat fur, a park ranger’s
jangling keys, the creak of cable strain when bored,