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
Through Pisa
Pisa passed by and then
Florence and the overwhelming tombs.
Christ the Judge holding court
in the curve of the Baptistry roof;
a flicker of satisfaction
on the face of one of the blest
looking over his shoulder
at the luckless on the left
what thou lov'st well
shall not be reft from thee;
delicate singing girls
plucked from the cavernous streets
and placed in angelic choirs
praising the lamb that was slain.
But brighter even than angels
are the girls who walk in the shade
cast by the glittering dome
at their ease in the interval
of silence between the uproars
of the strongmen and the gangsters
who leave behind at least
a space in which to pause
and admire their dying gestures.