Winter

I know this winter isn’t going to end.
The thought itself’s imperishably old.
What cold can best preserve, it cannot mend;

And cold preserves itself, so don’t pretend
That Spring will leaven spirits with its dole.
I know this winter isn’t going to end.

I’m not so bold that I could not defend
Against my guilt, against the life you stole.
But cold can best preserve what cannot mend,

So now, unlike Raskolnikov, I lend
No weight to claims that time can heal the soul.
I know this winter isn’t going to end.

The day you died, I ceased to be your friend;
Became instead the warden of your soul.
What cold can best preserve, it cannot mend.

Your life gave in to time and mine to cold,
And this, love, is my curse, my fate, my goal:
What cold can best preserve, it cannot mend;
I know this winter isn’t going to end.


Note: I wrote a somewhat different version of this for my friend Tracy when Chris died, years ago now. It’s a mild variation on a villanelle, a song form first used in 16th Century France. It’s simple, sentimental and true.

I found myself searching for something to say after Tracy wrote to tell me that a mutual friend had died, unexpectedly and far, far too soon. This is what came out.

It should really be sung, a capella, with a slowly moving melody reminiscent of Cathedrals, by Jump Little Children. Maybe Tori can come up with something….

It’s for John, and for all of those who knew Shannon best.

Pidgin Poetics

[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]

I have a terrible confession to make: When I was young, working towards a degree in English Literature, I not only studied poetry, I wrote it too.

Now that I’ve got that dirty little secret out of the way, I can talk a little about one of the enduring delights of living in Vanuatu: The poetry of the language.

In literature and linguistics, pidgin tongues usually come across as the simple country cousin of ‘proper’ languages. That may be, but too many people seem to think that ‘simple’ and ‘stupid’ are synonymous. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

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