Post-mortem

When a man dies
We find that suddenly there’s time to praise him.
Then pardon his surprise
If, seeing the pinnacles to which we raise him,

Or, stunned to hear
Tongues dumb till now pronounce him good and great,
He gropes – ‘I’d no idea…
I might have stayed…but now, it’s a bit late.’

What iron vice
Lockjaws us silent till death do us part?
What breath of Arctic ice
Congeals the Gulf Stream of a generous heart?

Safe on his bier
Our man reaps all a lifetime’s panegyric,
But while he’s with us here –
Sharp eye, tight lip, assessment less than Iyric.

Will God or man
Cut the self-guarding cancers that alarm us
Until we dare and can
Praise living men, with power to top and harm us?

Then would we see
Men having nothing making many rich,
Setting the prisoners free –
See statues leap from pedestal and niche

In marble joy
Running unbound among the startled crowds
And the winged horse and boy
In supersonic bronze soar to the clouds.

Poems of the Spirit

  • Life and Death

    Look where he lies, a clod of earth at best,
    Yet colder than a clod, for where there shone

  • After

    Out of this questioning, eventual truth;
    Out of this doubt, faith rooted in the rock;

  • The Old Convict Church, Port Arthur

    ..By a blue winking sea,
    The church stands in a green place,
    Green as Calvary.

  • Easter Hymn

    Out of the cloud my Lord the Sun,
    Out of the earth my Lady Spring,

  • Milton Blind

    That dreaming day it was, the bell-like air
    Unclosed the naked admirable heaven,

  • Come Death Suddenly

    Come death suddenly from the sea or cloud,
    With the blast of thunder and the blinding shroud,

  • If I should die

    If I should die, grieve not for youth
    Blighted, and towers of hope that fell

  • To J.S. Bach

    Now, when the smoking ruins smoulder low
    Of what was Europe once

  • On Cathedral Mountain

    This mountain means discovery, since the day
    I climbed it first in boyhood and alone,

  • Post-mortem

    When a man dies
    We find that suddenly there’s time to praise him.

  • Christmas Tree

    You hold the timeless in your brief green boughs
    The cardboard angels, home-made crib, the straw,
    The new-born baby older than Abraham

  • Passover

    Between the tumult of crucifixion
    and the diapason of resurrection
    that bar of absolute silence.

  • Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto

    …Listening,
    I am bereft, lost in the mystery
    of music leaping quenchless, undefiled

  • Astronomy

    ‘The love that moves the sun and all the stars’ –
    When Dante wrote there was no telescope:

  • The Honey Man

    Like liquid silk in golden eddies
    the honey laps into my tin.

  • The Child and the World

    It was a terrible world
    And into it came a child

  • For Australia

    Lord of earth and all creation
    let your love possess our land;

  • Christmas Gift

    ..stamped with a star, but posted beyond the stars,
    marked ‘No Commercial Value’, signed, with a cross,

  • Extraterrestrial Report

    Arrived at the heavenly mansions, the blessed Saint
    (female on earth) was welcomed by St Peter

  • Canberra Autumn

    Land of the singing light
    Light that first I saw
    Eighty years and more