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
Departure
Gods spoke in the concrete streets
catching the wind in their teeth
of places they called Eden
and Jerusalem and the loss
of innocence and the chance
of regeneration to be grasped
in whatever chance encounter
the fear of death provided.
Words that soared like scared birds
and fell into trembling silence
a long time ago a long way behind.
Now in a dark metallic womb I hear
Mozart over the Pacific faintly
contend with the drumming void.