Peter Skrzynecki Poems

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
...