Inquiry

"Who but the dead can kiss the not yet born ?"

George Barker

The eternity of yesterday fleeing the eternity of today
Bears the eternity of tomorrow ...
But tomorrow's eternity is still-born, lived in the infinity of today.
If time should have some flaw,
Some pause to catch at our tenuous past,
Could one savour fragments of a yesterday ?
"Stop the world. I want to get off."
Too late! Too late to clutch at a star, attempt a halt.
If we cannot deflect that sound
Whose sullen echo we try to record
Can death be more than our destination ?
The skirling of an inaccessible telephone
Jarring into tension every tender nerve
An insistant emptiness fulfilling only frustration
Who can withstand but the dead ?
"Therefore never send to know for whom ...."
Tis for thee, for thee, for thee.
The fool, phlegmatic and complacent
Like a bloated melon in the sun
Comments in the wisdom of apathy
Cela m'est egal.
Life is petty.
Dangling in ever and never from a happy day's rim
But where in the haze of our infinitude
Can one retain a microcosm in time ?
Is there any blade to provide a scissure
Or will the foetus, by its lifeline garrotted,
Die voiceless in the womb?

Peter Curnow