The Best 100 Poems of Les Murray

Les Murray

• Publisher: Black Inc.
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781921870781
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

From his life's work so far, spanning more than four decades, Les Murray has selected these 100 poems, his personal best. Including classics such as 'The Broad Bean Sermon', 'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow' and 'The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever', this elegant hardback is guaranteed to delight Murray fans and introduce new readers to his work. This is a wonderful gift, and a treasure trove of the best poems ever written in Australia.'No poet has ever travelled like this, whether in reality or simply in the mind … Seeing the shape or hearing the sound of one thing in another, he finds forms' —Clive James'He is, quite simply, the one by whom the language lives.' —Joseph Brodsky'There is no poetry in the English language now so rooted in its sacredness, so broadleafed in its pleasures and yet so intimate and conversational.' —Derek Walcott'An unequivocal national treasure' —Melbourne Review'An outstanding collection.' —Canberra Times'This is Murray as he sees himself: the icon in the mirror, not on the stage.' —AustralianLes Murray lives in Bunyah, near Taree in New South Wales. He has published some thirty books. His work is studied in schools and universities around Australia and has been translated into several foreign languages.

DRIVING THROUGH SAWMILL TOWNS

1

In the high cool country,

having come from the clouds,

down a tilting road

into a distant valley,

you drive without haste. Your windscreen parts the forest,

swaying and glancing, and jammed midday brilliance

crouches in clearings …

then you come across them,

the sawmill towns, bare hamlets built of boards

with perhaps a store,

perhaps a bridge beyond

and a little sidelong creek alive with pebbles.

2

The mills are roofed with iron, have no walls:

you look straight in as you pass, see lithe men working,

the swerve of a winch,

dim dazzling blades advancing

through a trolley-borne trunk

till it sags apart

in a manifold sprawl of weatherboards and battens.

The men watch you pass:

when you stop your car and ask them for directions,

tall youths look away –

it is the older men who

come out in blue singlets and talk softly to you.

Beside each mill, smoke trickles out of mounds

of ash and sawdust.

3

You glide on through town,

your mudguards damp with cloud.

The houses there wear verandahs out of shyness,

all day in calendared kitchens, women listen

for cars on the road,

lost children in the bush,

a cry from the mill, a footstep –

nothing happens.

The half-heard radio sings

its song of sidewalks.

Sometimes a woman, sweeping her front step,

or a plain young wife at a tankstand fetching water

in a metal bucket will turn round and gaze

at the mountains in wonderment,

looking for a city.

4

Evenings are very quiet. All around

the forest is there.

As night comes down, the houses watch each other:

a light going out in a window here has meaning.

You speed away through the upland,

glare through towns

and are gone in the forest, glowing on far hills.

On summer nights

ground-crickets sing and pause.

In the dark of winter, tin roofs sough with rain,

downpipes chafe in the wind, agog with water.

Men sit after tea

by the stove while their wives talk, rolling a dead match

between their fingers,

thinking of the future.

AN ABSOLUTELY ORDINARY RAINBOW

The word goes round Repins,

the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,

at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,

the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands

and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:

There’s a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can’t stop him.

The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile

and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk

and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets

which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:

There’s a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.

The man we surround, the man no one approaches

simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps

not like a child, not like the wind, like a man

and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even

sob very loudly – yet the dignity of his weeping

holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him

in t...

Table of contents

• Front cover
• Copyright
• THE BEST 100 POEMS OF LES MURRAY
• Contents
• Dedication
• Driving Through Sawmill Towns
• Two Poems in Memory of My Mother, Miriam Murray née Arnall
• July: Midwinter Haircut
• The Wedding at Berrico
• The Harleys
• Oasis City
• The Meaning of Existence
• Death from Exposure
• As Country Was Slow
• High-speed Bird