Peter Skrzynecki

1949


1
Tired, embittered,
wary of each other—
like men whose death sentences
have been commuted,
...

My gentle father
Kept pace only with the Joneses
Of his own mind's making -
Loved his garden like an only child,
...

It was the mountain
I was always going to climb —
Swore that heat would not tire me,
Flowers and snakes could not
...

Week after week
we've met as friends or strangers
and talked about
writing poetry -
tried to finish off
a line or more
in the small tutorial room
or on the steps of the quadrangle:

meeting and sharing the same air,
same sunlight, wind
or whatever the weather might be -

mindful of the hour's brevity
and where our lives
have to be when it's over:

in a car, a train,
walking away -
travelling through private dreams:

remembering, perhaps, the fringed pond
in the field below
the quadrangle steps,
bulrushes and swallows among trees -

or the little track winding skywards
through the grass
to the highway and beyond the hills,

connecting where we're at
and where we're hoping to be -

sometimes with such difficulty,
at other times with such puzzling ease.
...

Even words are tinged with autumn
before they drift
over the brown stream's crest -
falling at Gostwyck from a haze
...

"Life as nowhere else and a people apart."
- Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead


Transferred from Haematology
...

Death speaks softly
like an old friend that visits
without giving notice—
that enters the house
without first knocking
or waiting to be asked in.

The voice that calls out
is that of a young girl
who asks Death to go away—
she pleads her youth,
calls Death "the dear one"
and speaks against being touched.

Death continues to speak
lovingly and tells her
not to be afraid—
that Death will comfort her,
give courage
and promises she will sleep:

after all, Death is the old friend
to whom the door
was always left open—
trustworthy, reliable, punctual.
A violin's notes stab the air sharply
Death speaks for the last time.
...

The gate is heavy as lead;
its rusty hinges creak
as we respectfully enter
the cemetery at Glencree
created by a secluded cliff-face
...

Running late, arriving just in time,
shaking two or three hands
and taking a seat in the back row—
trying to regain breath
...

With the hot summer rains they came
out of the forest, crying like lost souls
against a December moon that offered
...

The fires burned for weeks on end.
In paddocks where they were put out
logs smouldered for days afterwards.
Farmers talked about how long
...

Our thoughts, reflecting the fears that we suppressed,
turned our eyes to the road ahead and searched
the arc of bay to comment on fishing boats and weather.
Within a few seconds and words we passed the headstones:
...

Who are these shadows
that hang over you in a dream—
the bearded, faceless men
standing shoulder to shoulder?
...

Parkes, 1949-51


No one kept count
of all the comings and goings—
...

He has grown tired
of the clichéd
pronunciation of his name—
countering
...

The men would often go hunting rabbits
in the countryside around the hostel—
with guns and traps and children following
in the sunlight of afternoon paddocks:
marvelling in their native tongues
at the scent of eucalypts all around.

We never asked where the guns came from
or what was done with them later:
as each rifle's echo cracked through the hills
and a rabbit would leap as if jerked
on a wire through the air—
or, watching hands release a trap
then listening to a neck being broken.

Later, I could never bring myself
to watch the animals being skinned
and gutted—
excitedly
talking about the ones that escaped
and how white tails bobbed among brown tussocks.
For days afterwards
our rooms smelt of blood and fur
as the meat was cooked in pots
over a kerosene primus.

But eat I did, and asked for more,
as I learnt about the meaning of rations
and the length of queues in dining halls—
as well as the names of trees
from the surrounding hills that always seemed
to be flowering with wattles:
growing less and less frightened by gunshots
and what the smell of gunpowder meant—
quickly learning to walk and keep up with men
who strode through strange hills
as if their migration had still not come to an end.
...

He rode the red dust roads as a kid
in a billycart built from a fruitbox
along with other kids like himself
who lived on hope and laughter—
...

I must be less
than eighteen months old—
naked, in my mother's arms,
face pressed against hers
...

for Gillian Mears

In Basho's house
there are no walls,
no roof, floors
or pathway—
nothing to show
...

Impossible not to see them
once you cross the railway bridge
and enter Memorial Avenue—
the rows of red trees
along the cemetery's perimeter:
...