Museworthy: Afton Blommor (Evening Flower) for Par Lagerkvist
You asked our questions
When we could not have asked them
Because we did not know what would fulfil us
Because we did not know what to ask
That you were forgotten is right
That what you wrote, what you asked for us
is forgotten ...
I now ask how this could be so
Must we keep wondering what the stars could be
if they were not stars
Must we keep sitting in the dark
Child after child, man after man
What is the light and what does the sky look like?
There are days which happen now
when no-one thinks as clearly as the stream
When birds' flight is simply missed
because people are living upside-down
If I go out I take your book with its dark green cover
and breaking spine and read it aloud like a curiosity
Soon it is dusk but they, the other speakers
cannot tell the difference between a new word
and an original one
They say, I don't know what you read
They think the evening flower
keeps happening
BY MTC CRONIN
MTC Cronin has had seven books of poetry published, the most recent being Bestseller (Vagabond Press, 2001) and My Lover's Back — 79 Love poems (UQP, 2002). After being employed for most of the 1990s in law, she has in recent years begun teaching literature and creative writing at secondary schools and universities. She is currently working on a PhD, Poetry and Law: Discourses of the Social Heart. Her books are available by contacting her at <margie_cronin@hotmail.com> or phone (02) 9550 2918.
From Green Left Weekly, July 17, 2002.
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