Nevertheless, I like the final 5 couplets the most, Max; that 'revenant' image, for example. Although you & the poem had to get there.
I think some judicious cutting would make it harder; as in:
and fishermen in small boats kill
maybe more hours than fish.
But you do the memories well...
Doug
On Nov 6, 2013, at 2:18 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> thanks, Patrick.
>
> Last line and a few others need improving.
>
> Don't hold back - if you can skim it again, which is quite a big Ask…
>
> Max
>
> On 06/11/2013, at 6:50 PM, Patrick McManus wrote:
>
>> Max 'today or never I may pause here,'
>> that has a resonance with me!!
>> Liked the changing times throughout
>> Not sure last line?
>> P
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of Max Richards
>> Sent: 06 November 2013 06:57
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: 'Above Manukau Harbour'
>>
>> Above Manukau Harbour
>>
>>
>> Passed this cemetery many times
>> without once stopping, making
>>
>> dutiful tracks to see my father's sister
>> and her husband Uncle Al -
>>
>> they had been kind to me in my youth.
>> Latterly I'd call by when in town
>>
>> more to marvel how they tested
>> constantly each other's patience.
>>
>> How many marriages come to this!
>> Which was the carer each needed? Neither.
>>
>> An hour of them and I'd be gone.
>> Back on the road - that cemetery!
>>
>> colonists, pioneer graves, were they?
>> proclaiming 'We took the best land,
>>
>> even our dead have the best views!
>> Below's a panorama of our making,
>>
>> prosperous traffic, trading profits,
>> a port, a highway, bridges.'
>>
>> Not to mention power pylons.
>> Had I been a camera-carrier
>>
>> I'd surely have pulled over,
>> strolled about, lined up headstones
>>
>> and the odd weathered angel
>> with harbour below, quiet
>>
>> like time steadied and slowed -
>> the Manukau, western, tidal,
>>
>> opening to the rough Tasman
>> somewhere far to the right.
>>
>> More planes than ships to be seen
>> these days, though the port survives,
>>
>> and fishermen in small boats kill
>> maybe more hours than they catch fish.
>>
>> The sky is always huge, dramatising
>> the weather and its south-west changes.
>>
>> Now aunt and uncle have had their funerals,
>> neither graced by me, despite a promise.
>>
>> They don't lie here - besides, I don't 'do graves'.
>> Perhaps they're side by side, in silence
>>
>> finally harmonious. Elsewhere.
>> An hour to spare, a smart-phone in my hand -
>>
>> today or never I may pause here,
>> living out my last years way over the Tasman -
>>
>> I'm prowling with the camera ready
>> settling vertical monuments between
>>
>> horizontal land-and-water vistas.
>> Click. Pause, Save. Try for a better angle,
>>
>> better framing - click. Is it filed in Photos?
>> Try for that moment when a gull flies over
>>
>> like a restless revenant, here
>> a short while, suddenly elsewhere.
>>
>> The gravestones lean together one way
>> suspended still above the sea.
>
Douglas Barbour
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Art is always the replacing of indifference by attention.
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