Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Tug Dumbly - Les Murray Through a Glass Bottom


Les Murray Through a Glass Bottom

Les looks down
through a glass-bottom
at the fishes and the weed,
at the reef that knifed the Sirius.
A big man in a tiny boat.
Only about six of us.
This much I remember, though
most of the time I was gilled
on duty-free gin.
I barely recall my readings
on Norfolk Island.
That’s another poetry festival
not to have me back again.

I get a flash of me and Gini
running into Les and his wife
outside a convict ruin on the green,
of Valerie being lovely
and Les expanding free
on the place’s history.

We find Dorothy Porter,
alone and under the pines,
high above Anson Bay.
It’s evening, and she so small,
dark eyed and self-contained,
far from anyone and anywhere.
She smiles. She gone too.

But what sticks most is Les,
too big in that boat too small,
peering down through the glass
into a clear green fathom,
and me thinking Prospero, 
what’s he seeing down there? 
No, what’s he really seeing?


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