1250
whistling a prayer
(eulogy for Les Murray)
you never find a thing by looking
but how it comes to me
and we live forever until
he’s gone with whom the argument
the stolid see-er
stubborn wordsman
often wrong
God-puffed
still glory his
but in the end
I jogged along
knowing twenty years between us
I’m coming up Cecil’s Lane with the mail this once
(some might say driveway
but I too live the myth like this)
every river has its poet
Les said
it’s all translation
never more
the sky was once
the sea will be
wild to be in words
such as are
the poverty kept up like religion
and though there were so many jealous
I blame the government for this
succession of them
postage card shack for a national treasure
how can a nation know?
he was always the smartest in the room
no two foxes are the same
(he never wanted that one translated)
however unnatural this world or another
I scent the pole
in fur-light
every animal am
I wonder about my wondering
and conjure up a soul for it
call forth
bone weary where
dog smells of gunshot
circles
day in its wherewithal shows through
in all these acts of it
creature to creature
all life and death
and so suspense
every whiff a memory
and shatters into tune
silvered sleeve
pants through at the knee
much worse the bullying, the mock
which words are with us now
who knows?
so savant － this practice of indiscipline
in the great presence
it’s personal
and protestant
you won’t get a priest between us
this is the nothing humble but say so
discussing pademelon sightings, salt
the deification goes on
what certainty there was
to frame these best of doubts
and who will bear this torch along
with irony and humour
the one that’s flickered out
now bung
?
vultures of the right
to pick the bones they queue
it has to be done from memory
just the lines that stuck in your head
it was only half a mock
when he whisperingly
annointed me
the poet of the Myall
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