Don’t moan like second stage labour
in the back row. It doesn’t help
anyone. Soften your eyes, like a horse,
so you can see everything at once
like they do. Understand the source
from which all this verse springs.
Intuit it. As if you lived in a village.
One day they’ll die. In the meantime
they have a voice.
Their courage
as their arms swing and eyes roll
is their poem.
And the moment when they stall and
understand that on the richter scale
they are registering less than ten
is more moving than Fern Hill.
—Jennifer Compton
____
from Parker & Quink, (Ginninderra Press, 2004)