Blackburn died so young!
Is this a fair sample? (from epc buffalo) chosen for its cemetery ref...
Max
Tanks
Houses three stories high
or block homes of apartments
both with steep Norman roofs
The fish swims in the river
and shares it with other fish
The cabbages have a garden
to share with the lettuce and radishes,
the tomatoes
The cow has a small pasture
and grazes it by herself
An old man lies on a sack
on
a hillside in the sun
after lunch .
watches the train whip by
The dead lie in the cemetery near the tracks
share earth with the other dead
and do not look at anything
A barge on the river barges past, the wash flying
The fish swim in the river
They share it with the barge,
the fishermen .
late Aug / 1968
[1975]
Quoting Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]>:
> 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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