Monday, July 19, 2010

Tuesday Poem: Song at Summer's End

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SONG AT SUMMER’S END

Down in the park the children play
rag-happy through the summer’s day
with dirty feet and freckled faces,
laughing, fighting, running races.
Dull against the smoky skies
the summer’s heavy burden lies,
leaden leaves on tired trees
lacking supple limbs like these.

The skyline shows the shape of life,
tomorrow’s world of sweat and strife,
fifty stacks and one grey steeple.
Down the street come factory people,
folk who used to play on swings
dodging chores and apron-strings
to wrestle on the grass and run
barefoot with the fleeting sun.

Some of the kids are sailing boats:
the first leaf drops unheeded, floats
and dances on the muddy pond.
Shadows from the world beyond
lengthen, sprawl across the park;
day rolls onward towards the dark.
From the clock-tower wreathed in smoke,
Time speaks gravely, stroke on stroke.

A R D Fairburn

When I became interested in New Zelaand poetry A.R.D.Fairburn was one of our leading lights. He has since rather dropped below the radar. But I’ve been re-reading him.

Last weekend there was a neighborhood children’s party near-by. As I listened to the shouts, squeals and laughter, Fairburn’s lines vaulted into my mind, ‘rag-happy down in the park the children play.” He wrote in depression days when ‘rag-happy’ was an accurate description. It still is, in too many instances, but the sound of children at play is a constant through the generations. That carefree merriment of youth, how regrettable is its erosion over time. It’s a very urban poem. Of course, today’s children tend to face an office future, rather than an industrial one. Also, of course, childhood is not all merriment.

In my youth there might have been a war on and our parents were recovering from the depression years but my cousins and I played noisily together. My mother’s parents had 18 grandchildren. 11 of us met a few years ago for a cousin’s reunion. As I looked around the room, faces wrinkled by the years, another line from this poem also sprang to mind. ‘Time speaks gravely stroke by stroke.’ What power lies behind that word ‘gravely’ as the generations pass through. The poet's words span time.

4 comments:

  1. This poem just begged to be read aloud. The word choice is amazing, and the ending being, as you say so brilliant, tying the poem together so completely it begs to be read again :)
    cheers for digging it up.

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  2. Hello Harvey - I've been a quiet visitor to your blog for some time now. (I think this might be the first time I've left a message?).
    Thank you for this Fairburn poem. It spans lifetimes, doesn't it? I, too, found the last lines particularly poignant, esp. 'stroke by stroke... ' for the way it alludes to so many things. Amongst these, touch, illness, the inevitable passing of time. The word 'stroke' contains a universe.
    Warm greetings to you
    Claire

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  3. Harvey,

    I enjoyed the poem--and am not well acquainted with Fairburn. As you say he has dropped below the radar, so thank you for drawing his work to my attention.

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  4. REX FAIBURN WAS WRITING ABOUT VICTOIRA PARK IN AUCKLAND
    THE GREY STEEPLE IS ST MATHEWS CHURCH
    THE CLOCK TOWER IS THE FERRY BUILDINGS.
    I AM READING THIS POEM FOR MY DAD TOMORROW AT HIS BURIEL SERVICE.HE IS 99.
    MY FATHER GEORGE STANLEY ANDREWS WAS A FRIEND OF REX, AND FRANK SARGESON AND ALL THE WONDERFUL YOUNG INTERLECTUALS AT TAKAPUNA BEACH IN THOSE DAYS.

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