Sputnik
'Vision-impaired'
senior New Zealand writer
O. E. Middleton
(Ted), had his funeral
yesterday in Dunedin.
Our mutual friend, Alan,
read Dunbar's
Lament for the Makars -
'Timor mortis conturbat me'.
My Ted Middleton,
not then senior,
served as writing tutor
at Adult Education
Auckland - a tiny group
of his I shyly joined
in 'fifty-seven,
year of the sputnik.
We went outside and peered up.
A bright light was crossing our sky.
Ted peered where we pointed,
took our word for it.
We all chuckled at America's
discomfiture.
Decades since I met him,
decades since I read him.
They say his stories
are not vision-impaired.
A small light, once in our sky.
Timor mortis? he was a makar,
a maker, and gone before.
Max Richards
in Melbourne
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