How good to defer!
P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 26 November 2008 12:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: snap: once an academic (debugged?)
Once an Academic
This is the time of year, late spring,
when, fast as I could, I'd leave
the last examiners' meeting - results sheets
signed, our students' fates sealed -
and slip away (stern colleagues
resumed their stubborn research)
to the car-park, thence near the river,
leaving the car in a shady place
with most of my clothing, search out
along tracks by the gum-tree-lined banks
my current favoured secluded spot,
check on my solitude, unlikely
to be disturbed, and strip off
(but for dark glasses and sun-hat),
wade slowly in, toes tentative
in cool mud, the river flow
rising against my thighs, embracing
my waist, my chest. Should I lift off
and float? maybe down to the next line
of rocks that angled across the stream?
That could be delicious, and the rocks
made fine sunning spots, full-length.
Or - brace against the current,
edge my way right to the other bank,
climb up through sedge and clay,
reaching for a wattle branch
and lever myself up and out.
Spring's first butterflies hovered,
bees fumbled the wattle blossom,
bell-birds rang through the valley,
my big book on poetry, or even
a small book, deferred itself again.
Wednesday 26 November 2008
Max Richards
Doncaster, Victoria
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