Counterpoise
Andrew Lansdown
Angus & Robertson Publishers (Sydney), 1982
ISBN 0-207-14664-0
Back cover blurb
The short poems in this first fully fledged collection by Andrew Lansdown may be read singly or as a sequence that covers the whole of the poet’s life, from memories of childhood through to marriage and the birth of his first child. Poems celebrate a wife and grandparents, animals and birds, the loneliness of the human spirit as well as its communion and identification with others. Always alert to the shapes and textures of the natural world, some of these poems have the frail beauty of oriental art, while others are urgent with social criticism and indignation. They introduce to a wider public a young poet who deserves to be better known outside his native Western Australia.
— Les Murray
Five Poems from Counterpoise
Sehnsucht
Everyone else is asleep
and I am up this early
only to keep my small son from crying.
I carry him down to the river.
A slight mist lingers by the bend.
Trees stand on their heads in the still water.
Has he seen a river before?
I can’t remember.
He raises his hand,
reaching for it.
He looks back at me
to make sure I have seen it.
How can anyone find anything so amazing?
Yet it’s not just the river:
stones, leaves, chickens, fire—
things I still love
though they’ve fallen familiar—
fill him continually with joy and wonder.
Oo! Oo! he says
as if it hurts him
here in my arms, seeing the river
for the first time.
And a familiar strangeness
grips my heart
and I sing to him
Jesus loves the little children
to keep from weeping.
© Andrew Lansdown
For Philip
This is what death has done:
Changed him beyond belief
Made him blind and dumb
Turned him cold to the sun
Blown him away like a leaf:
This is what death has done.
Can a tune beat time
On the drum of his ear
Now silence is the sound
That alone draws near?
Seeing his form, we are numb:
For whom did we make this wreath?
He is blind and dumb.
We huddle together as one,
Yet each alone in our grief.
This is what death has done.
Can a maiden dance
In the chamber of his heart
Now his blood is still
And he’s set apart?
My mother mourns her son,
But tears are cold relief:
He is blind and dumb.
The words that twist my tongue
Are bitter beyond all grief:
Look what death has done—
Made him blind and dumb!
Will the Day-Star rise
To the circle of his sight?
Will his tongue peal praise
To the Father of Light?
© Andrew Lansdown
The Japanese Gardener
The Japanese gardener
who keeps the river
is working hard today
He has raked
the entire bay
neatly
except for a small patch
near the centre
which he has trowelled
smooth perfectly
smooth
Now just wait
and he will probably
move
that sailboat
into the stillness
for a mountain
© Andrew Lansdown
Welcome Swallows at Murdoch University
To this foreboding place,
where students learn through poems
of a season called Spring,
two swallows have come to make a home.
Too unimportant to be noticed
and too unconscious to care,
they skim through the rafters
and weave through the air.
At the end of one rafter
they dab mud for a nest:
it is the only spot
where they come to rest.
Who else would have dared
such a simple, untidy thing
here in the walkway
of the West Academic Wing?
© Andrew Lansdown
Counterpoise
Light refracting on the reach of the river;
gulls and sails embracing the slight wind;
jellyfish clasping the calm water
or bunting the sand in the basking shallows;
posts of wood barnacled and rotten;
small waves lisping upon the shore:
hero is an opulence I had forgotten.
And here and there, a scatter of children
scamper across the lawn like leaves
driven before the tempest of their happiness.
Parents and grandparents are at ease
in the shade of trees and in each other’s company.
For these people, things I thought we had lost
have never been open to doubt.
As the sun departs, parties arrive for prawning:
light their lanterns and lay out their nets.
The world again seems young and lovely,
values certain and strong: young men
and old men, friends, fathers and sons
in pairs dissolve into the dark water
and toil together in the hope of harvest.
How ignorant I have been
through these last years of learning,
how weighted down on one side of the scale.
The large, deep things are all
in their own ways dark and hard.
Small things are a counterpoise
to lighten and soften the heart.
© Andrew Lansdown