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    The Lilac Bow
    The Lilac Bow
    The Lilac Bow
    Ebook53 pages32 minutes

    The Lilac Bow

    By Maurice Whelan

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    About this ebook

    The Lilac Bow is the first book of poetry by the author of the collections Excalibur’s Return, A Season and a Time and, most recently, Spirit Eyes. Maurice Whelan is also the author of the acclaimed novel Boat People.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGinninderra Press
    Release dateMar 1, 2017
    ISBN9781760413095
    The Lilac Bow

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      Book preview

      The Lilac Bow - Maurice Whelan

      The Lilac Bow

      The Lilac Bow

      Maurice Whelan

      Ginninderra Press

      Contents

      The Lilac Bow

      Acknowledgements

      Also by Maurice Whelan

      The Lilac Bow: Poems & Prose

      ISBN 978 1 76041 309 5

      Copyright © Maurice Whelan 2009

      All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission should be sent to the publisher at the address below.

      First published 2009

      Reprinted 2017

      Ginninderra Press

      PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide SA 5015

      www.ginninderrapress.com.au

      to Anthony

      in whose presence

      the wondrous words

      of the poets

      of Yeats and Keats

      and Shakespeare

      first found wings

      ‘There is a method of trying periods on the ear, or weighing them with the scales of the breath, without any articulate sound. Authors, as they write, may be said to hear a sound so fine, there’s nothing lives ’twixt it and silence.’

      William Hazlitt, On the Conversation of Authors

      The Lilac Bow

      High Flyer

      Soaring on wings

      high above the escarpment

      circling

      while the hourglass builds

      a small mountain

      of sand

      How long has it been?

      How long has it been? Is it ten years?

      Twelve if it’s been a day!

      You’re looking good, he said to me.

      The man beside him caught my eye,

      raised his bottle of beer

      and moved away.

      You haven’t changed a bit, I said.

      He changed his grip on his dripping wine glass

      and offered a limp handshake

      The same small eyes peered over the parapets

      lost in each stroke of the present time.

      Nothing had been ventured,

      the future always took his breath away,

      a deep chasm waiting to devour him,

      the past a mine of dreams

      never explored.

      The man with the bottle of beer returned

      and caught my eye.

      I could see he knew more

      than when last he looked my way.

      Sea Creatures

      Shoals of memories

      Moments of our past

      Swim the oceans of our lives

      We who are wanderers

      Mingle with the currents

      You that stand

      Feet firm upon the shore

      Cast the nets

      Muscae Volitantes

      In memoriam John McGahern

      Staring into the middle distance

      seeing nothing

      lost in half a thought

      signalled its entrance.

      It came from south by south-west

      and moved slowly upwards

      towards the centre of things.

      It never arrived at its destination

      and disappeared

      without trace or trail

      from the radar of my eye.

      Over the years

      I grew familiar with its presence

      and absence.

      I drew attention to it

      when a new pair of reading glasses was required.

      She called it a floater – muscae volitantes

      a Pluto moving mysteriously

      alone

      away in the far-out

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