Windfalls
Andrew Lansdown
Fremantle Arts Centre Press (Fremantle), 1984
ISBN 0-909144-85-0

 

Back cover blurb

Windfalls is an exciting new collection by one of Australia’s foremost younger poets, reflecting his deep concern for the country’s flora and fauna, and for human relationships and spirituality.

Andrew Lansdown “has what I call a courage of delicacy, and a real unconventionality which resists the busy inertia of received literary attitudes; he is not afraid of concepts such as joy, nor of the literal tears in things. He espouses, though not all the time, an aesthetic of small observations.”
— Les Murray, The Sydney Morning Herald

                                                                                                        

 

 

Four Poems from Windfalls

Grief

It is nothing tangible, no action, no word that has been said,
Just a feeling that sweeps the soul quite without warning
As a wind brushes the growing grain briefly on a calm morning.
It is a grief, a sudden remembrance that he is dead.

It is a feeling and a fact that God alone may understand.
Though I strain to remember, I long to forget.
But neither gives refuge or relief: either holds sorrow and regret.
He is gone: the cup is broken, the water spilt upon the sand.

Like a haunted theatre, there are lights and sounds in my head.
My mind flicks through old film, jams on an almost forgotten frame:
I see his face, hear his voice—and mine, whispering his name.
And for a moment there is nothing, no one I would rather instead.

It dies quickly, lies lightly like an autumn leaf;
But who knows what winds may flick it up again, this grief?

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

A Remembrance of Robins

From the twig where they rested
I saw them flit away: two robins
white-capped and scarlet-breasted.

And for a moment they invested
the countryside with colour
from the twig where they rested.

No flower, no other bird contested
the bright display of these two—both
white-capped and scarlet-breasted.

Without warrant they arrested
me: plum blossoms seemed to bloom
from the twig where they rested.

And in departure they divested
the bush of brightness: bobbing away robins
white-capped and scarlet-breasted.

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

Fire From Dark Water

By the far shore, the lights
are bright oils on a black canvas.
In the still night, voices ring
round the rim of the river: men confess

friendship, baptised in common purpose.
The moon is a sickle in a field of wheat.
So much is ripe for harvest!
The wind stirring, my soul is replete

with image and reflection.
There is time for gladness, time to forget
time. It is more than prawns
we will catch with this net.

Garfish scud, prawns skip as we approach.
Between us the net is aglow
like the mantle of a lamp.
How much loveliness can one man know?

Look—such luminescence! I stamp
my foot. My legs are trees, burning, a bark
of bright coal. Each step
is a strong wind, a flaying of sparks.

So, fire breaking from dark water
along the river, within our hearts.

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

When I Write

My study light draws moths
from the deep night
like a magician pulling pigeons
from an empty hat.

One is scrabbling
on the black slate of my window;
another has pinned
itself to the glass.

My thoughts are like moths
blind with the knowledge of light
They scrabble against my skull,
spread their wings when I write.

            © Andrew Lansdown