Poor Richard
dear kanga
Leave Report
Sabbatical • Departure • Arrival • Elgin Crescent • A Shot of the British Museum • At the Victoria and Albert • The Book of Kells • At Kew • Through Pisa • Return to Iffley • Mordros
Source: Poor Richard: Poems. Wellington: Port Nicholson Press, 1982
Electronic source: Poor Richard: a TEI-conformant transcription
All poems © W. H. Oliver
3
No cliché but he fell into its trap.
The finest native race. The thin red line.
The boys in blue. A white man through and through.
Worn out in service they deserve our thanks.
But can she mend my clothes and clean my linen?
(She could when he was young build nests of birds
at song inside his skin
and laugh to life the sentimental man
shuddering inside the shell.)
How his heart swelled to see
the young about their wholesome recreations
the women virtuous and dutiful
the sturdy settler parcelling the soil
the aged poor aglow with gratitude.
Such tender care! Not everyone so lucky:
the Maori robbed of land
the swagger shifted on
the unregenerate poor
the striker at Waihi
the looter at Karangahape Rd
the Islander beneath the Gideons' boots
the solo mother in a rented room
the woman with three tribunals and no airfare.