High Country Weather

Alone we are born
And die alone
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
over snow-mountain shine.

Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger.

---

James K. Baxter

---

Jimmy Baxter (``John. K. Oxter'') is New Zealand's most famous poet. He was a man of great gifts and considerable charm, but he was far too prolific and was a hopeless critic of his own work. He was a cult figure to NZ radicals of my generation, as the rather Buddhist tone of this wonderful little poem might indeed have led one to expect, but he was in fact a catholic convert and had the full set of tiresome habits that go with it.

Every New Zealander of a certain age has this poem by heart. I do, for one.

EI TEA
EI TAHA
POLE NII
KAUGELE ASJA

NINA EESKI ÜKS
EESEL ROOJAB
AVALIKULT JA
LAISALT

OTSEKUI MAAL SEINAL

kusagil kaugete jõgede rüpes
uinunud külade suitsuvines
hüpleb ja hüpleb hüpleb ja hüpleb
mõte maailmaimest:
kurjuseta inimesest
igavesest elust
igipäikesest pisikeses peeglis
mis on riputatud taeva raami

taevas ise asub teises pildis
kusagil kaugete jõgede rüpes
kesk laastatud laasi ja kõdunevaid tüvesid
mille koduks on omakorda uus ja pisem pilt

lõpuks ei helgi ega helenda muu
kui üksik klaassilm klaasist kandikul
päikesehetkel

http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~tf/poem4.html

Sonnet

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember, for you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, `They are dead'. Then add thereto
`Yet many a better one has died before'.
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew
Great death has made all his for evermore.

---

Charles Hamilton Sorley

---

As Michael Caine would say ``Not a lot of people know about Charles Hamilton Sorley''. But the line ``It is easy to be dead'' is surely one of the great lines of all time, and we really ought not to forget the man who wrote it. He was one of the many who had their lives cut off in the trenches. I know about him only because my father had been at the same school as Sorley, and had been exposed to the Local Hero effect. He doesn't seem to have written anything else that anyone knows, but this spine-chilling, blood-curdling little masterpiece surely deserves to be better known.

lumehelbeke
tasa tasa
väike inglike
kõrgel kõrgel
iga jõudmine
omal ajal
omaenese najal

lumehelbud Entu surmapäeval
rohelagedad valge katte alla peidetud
pilveveerelt ei vaatamast väsi päike
enne kui loojub ja loobub ja laseb
lambukestel koju tagasi tulla
kel lauta kel põõsa alla kel pilve piiride taha

Ikka veel elus
ilmamaa melus,
ootamas aadet,
mis avaks vaadet

jumalamäele
ja satuks istuma tema käele
enne kui vallanduks ilmuhke piuks
maailm lööks kõlama viuks ja viuks

et viivuks avaneks viirukiudus
pimedus mis meid kord nägijaks kudus
mõnusalt liugleks siis alla ja alla
põrgu uks hingedelt pühitaks valla

külmadelt kateldelt pühitaks tolm
hingede loendus algaks: üks kaks kolm
uni saaks tõeluseks
maailm saaks tolmuks
õeluseks õe-luseks
olevalt olnuks

vaataks meid lahkelt siis onu Albert
kellel jäid kadunuks viiul ja molbert
jõllitaks õlistaks õilistaks mootorid
milledel vanad ja roostetand rootorid

saadaks meid-masinaid tagasi Maale
paigutaks kenasti metsaraale
õnnistaks olema sipelgusinad masinad
masinad masinad masinad masinad