Max,
Nicely handled. I can remember being unexpectedly drawn into Cortland as I was driving
across the state of New York, surprised to find myself researching the house in which the
poet Paul Blackburn lived as he was dying of throat cancer. A graveyard was visible from
the rear of the house.
Barry
On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 16:08:46 +1000, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>Cemetery Road
>
>
>Off Yarra Street, turn right
>(mind the oncoming traffic)
>
>and the first three or four houses,
>new, on the left all look desirable:
>
>fresh, elegant, at home already
>among the sun-glinting eucalypts.
>
>The second is still for sale -
>couldn't we downsize here?
>
>Further from town, fewer rooms,
>affordable, livable. Roses; quiet.
>
>But who wants to live on Cemetery Road?
>After the houses there's that open space,
>
>parcelled out in graves and grave-sites.
>Not far to go when the time comes.
>
>The ultimate in downsizing.
>Observe the waiting plastic frames:
>
>piled, each a little larger than a grave:
>once the grave is dug you don't want it filling with rain.
>
>I sense my pallbearers' black shoes, polished
>that morning, sinking in soft clay at my grave's edge,
>
>the awkwardness with ropes, the tilting
>and lowering, settling down there, now
>
>and forever. The muddied shoes step back
>discreetly. Rose petals flutter on my lid.
>
> Wednesday 1 October 2008
>
> Max Richards, Doncaster, Victoria
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