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
The Book of Kells
The steady march of the lines
the margins secure and white
an act of devotion discharged
as the Viking night gathered
over Ireland from the north
to stand against the swords
the longships nosing the rivers
the soft green land disembowelled
the raiders the gunmen the bombers.
Cleft skulls lie under the peat
the longships have rotted away
the swords have flaked to rust
the jewels are dull with slime.
A column of words prevails
marshalled upon a page
the gift of a clearer eye
than the berserker's filled with blood
the gunman's hatched with hairlines.