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
Return to Iffley
It's important to get the names right.
They have some chance of taking my meaning
into the speechless future.
The path from Iffley Turn
wound the length of Church Way to St Mary's:
a Norman door to frame a photograph
of white flowers and a red carnation.
The service for the dead was being said
the hearse was yellow with chrysanthemums.
Mill Lane dropped sharply down
to the lock and the plunging weir.
There were warnings to watch out for
elderly pedestrians on private roads.
Nothing is going to happen.
Events on the shadowed edge
of memory ask to be left in peace.
The wishes of the dead will be respected.
It is enough to speak as clearly
as the waves from a small boat breaking
slap slap slap on the bank.
I did not look at the church but at the water
pouring over the weir. Slowly I followed
the towpath to Folly Bridge. It was not far.