Selected Poems by Kendrick Smithyman
Author:Kendrick Smithyman [Smithyman, Kendrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Poetry
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Published: 1989-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Reflections from Golden Gate (1)
The Stateâs at war, where the front forms.
Before the Parkâs wildcats strike,
before these cats become
insensibly one hungering shadow,
we shall take a bus downtown and go
to the Mission Dolores. There, it began
where Scots, Irish, Germans pack a yard
together. They flower like shrubs.
Scaled down, authority crowded west
to, from, the California lilacsâ breed
rooted in gold dust. Everything that lay
west has learned to force this golden gate.
Everything west from here was sometime forced.
In which, we share.
All will come (you cannot say) home.
In a finest manner so to speak, we are
already halfway home when sauntering
among hybrid leptosperms. We ride
through boulevards pohutukawas fire.
Between the Legion of Honorâs palace
and the Presidio we rode. Rule of law:
a Rodin Penseur in a court, back turned
on a stockade. Winged Victory, silvered slim
geometerâs fantasy, points the Pacific
like a hunter cat. The swallows dive,
swallows skim each pool of shadow.
Other cats, they prowl McAllister.
Black berets, beards in Market Street.
Intended irony is not their style.
A movie house spills out the track of Che.
Marines with zoom lenses, time-expired,
gobs from Enterprise, drift towards
Grant and Stockton. Diminished
responsibility, they do not bear
their war; which we share. Lady of Sorrows,
we do not go slimhipped, not panther wise.
The Stateâs at war but scarcely guesses
where the front forms. On some valley floorâs
pasture yet warm with heats of day
boys lie relaxed to let their sweats go dry.
So still, they could be dead; they soon may be.
Force of law hardly discriminates
these days one from another. The cats
shadow like motives, ours. Like dishonour,
contracted to it, which they understand.
And do not understand.
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