Les Murray: The Mitchells
I am seeing this: two men are sitting on a pole
they have dug a hole for and will, after dinner, raise
I think for wires. Water boils in a prune tin.
Bees hum their shift in unthinning mists of whitebursaria blossom, under the noon of wattles.
The men eat big meat sandwiches out of a styrofoam
box with a handle. One is overheard saying:
drought that year. Yes. Like trying to farm the road.The first man, if asked, would say I’m one of the Mitchells.
The other would gaze for a while, dried leaves in his palm,
and looking up, with pain and subtle amusement,say I’m one of the Mitchells. Of the pair, one has been rich
but never stopped wearing his oil-stained felt hat. Nearly everything
they say is ritual. Sometimes the scene is an avenue.
Thursday, the Literature Nobel is going to be announced, and I’m rooting for a poet. Personally, I am hoping for John Ashbery, but why not Australian giant Les Murray? The poem below is from his staggering Collected Poems, an unbelievably great collection of poetry.
i really like that.
makes me happy and sad at the same time.
happy because someone knows, and sad because i don’t.
but who am i to consider it relevant what i feel.
I like formalist poets like Murray who do something with the forms they use. and yes, tis a very moving poem indeed.