I go downstairs to buy wine
slightly paranoid the guy in the shop
will be thinking 'you again'
(but it's his job: to sell wine,
so why should I worry). I buy
an Australian shiraz and a
sauvignon blanc from New Zealand.
Upstairs, the heater on,
I read two poems Ken sent.
The builders outside have stopped building
(a third floor of concrete laid today)
and the light begins to fade. It's that
Brisbane winter clarity, sharpness
of buildings in Hamilton and Bulimba,
a white yacht moored on the river
under the cypresses (the old
Rheem factory). A crane hovers,
cement blocks as counterweight. What
will the light be like in Yorkshire
where we'll be in three weeks?

*

                         'everything . . .
small in comparison'
                         (Ken's poem
written during the Gulf War,
our life
          'in the interstices'
'almost furtive'.
                    The poem
a letter between two provincial capitals;
it's a month on, two almost
(since the conflict referred to).
The crane swings to the east
depositing wooden pallets,
hooks up its chains for end of work
(it's Saturday morning) and the operator
descends a ladder passing through hatches.

 

*

This morning, butcher birds sing near
an open window
                                        a gust
flaps the construction company banner
draping a side of the crane
'motionless today'.

Remembered from 'The Country hour' years back,
the theme from 'Blue Hills'
and the river heights
               that Greg McManus once described
               as 'karmically soothing',
though I doubt awareness of water-levels
would soothe now.

What are we?
                      Clerks
enumerating failure?

                                      A day so perfect,

wake of a ferry on the mud-coloured river.

Copyright © Laurie Duggan, 2003.