To Leeds 1964 [a sequel to last week's 'Zabaione']
 
[remembering Bill Pearson (1922-2002),
author of 'Coal Flat', 'Fretful Sleepers'
and 'Rifled Sanctuaries']

On overseas sabbatical,
Bill Pearson meets me
(shy, ill-read product of Auckland)
in Edinburgh where I¹m now a student.
I¹d re-elect him mentor, but he treats me
(and everyone) always as his equal.

Not being a driver,
he pats my new Cortina,
sits beside me meekly
with a map on his knee.
Southwest through the Borders
we head, keen to look about us
and sense historical links,
though neither he nor I are clear
how to pronounce more than short chunks
of the region¹s ballads we revere:
 
and what will ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
when ye gang over the sea O? ­
The world¹s room, let them beg through life,
mither, them never more will I see O. ­

The Borders ­ grand country where
it¹s forested, grand where it¹s bare,
here and there reminding Bill
of his South Island (which I¹ve yet to see) ­
which so many Scots,
landless, self-exiled, land-hungry,
found so congenial
for kirk and sheep and oats,
their practical knowledge
and their own Knox College;
Dunedin, Otago, where
lately Bill¹s friend James K. Baxter
plays both bard and sinner
like a Robert Burns reborn
with Jungian tartan on.

And the ruins ­ a wrecked castle with moat,
here¹s an old abbey open to the sky,
and that stone sheepfold, still on guard ­
just what Wordsworth¹s Michael lingered by.
Somewhere here Walter Scott wrote
those many long books I¹ve yet to read.

Further over, off our route, must be
Ayrshire, Robert Burns country;
of him we can just recite
Wee sleekit  tim¹rous cow¹rin¹ beastie
and something about a daimen-icker ....
His loves and all his bairns so needy...
to think he nearly left for Jamaica!

If it¹s Leeds we¹re heading for,
soon there¹s a junction to be navigated.
Bill¹s pilot finger has hesitated
before and does so now;
ignoring his slow advice,
I plunge (I trust) southeast.

I was right but did I offend him?
Darkness falls, rain sets in,
talk flags, wide English
counties slide by featureless.

Threading Leeds, we find the hostel
where next day is the conference.
Dumb at breakfast I admire dozens
of vibrant laughing delegates.

From everywhere in ŒThe Commonwealth¹
they¹ve come to discuss Œthe new literatures¹.
Can they have read enough books?
Could New Zealand interest West Indians?

Bill¹s paper assumes so, modestly
mapping the region he¹s traversed,
inheritance and adaptation,
both as scholar and novelist.
The man from The Guardian
assumes so. The West Indians
discern historical patterns
and living links quite unrehearsed.

Attempting conversation
among these cosmopolitans
from such scattered regions,
I try out my new word: dia-spora;
silence, laughter, then:
Œsounds like a disease, rather¹
says a poised someone.
Do I conceal my chagrin?
 
O what a panic¹s in my breastie ­
tongue-tied I lurk in bookshops,
dipping, never finishing a single book:
ballads, Burns, Scott, now a commonwealth
of unmapped new writing, the world¹s room.

So long, Bill, safe home.
My Edinburgh time  
expiring, I¹ll find somewhere some
congenial situation.
        *
Melbourne it turned out to be,
another, prouder Œpostcolonial site¹,
roomy enough but not quite
(failure to adapt?) for me.
        
Diaspora simply means dispersion.

Forty years on, pensioned off,
still behind with my reading,
and missing Auckland, I seem a case
of one who has mislaid his situation.
    
So long, Bill. You knew your work and place.

[Max Richards, Melbourne, 5 January 2005]