Lament For The Makers: 1997
In memoriam John Anderson 1948-97
'Art-magicians & Astrologgis,
Rhetoris, logicanis and theologgis,
Thame helpis nai conclusionis slee,
TIMOR MORTIS CONTURBAT ME.'
'I see that Makaris among the lave,
Playis here their padyanis, syne gois to grave,
Sparit is nocht their facultie:
TIMOR MORTIS CONTURBAT ME.'
William Dunbar, c. 1510-20 C.E.
The fear of Death disturbs not me:
Death's doleful waste defies the richness of my memory:
Too many worthy men I've known - and ladies wise -
Have looked that shattering second into Death's cold eyes
And fled this vale, where formerly they bravely fought
To capture goals their souls had dreamed and sought.
Now, removed from goals and striving, mute they be,
And biding time in halls or hells unknown to me.
Deirdre*, sparrow-singing writer of a Melbourne Irish Song,
Succumbed to Death as though she there belonged;
Leo**, proud father of this Celtic Mother-Bride,
Was warned by heaven first to curb his pride
On earth six years before he was gently led into the Blessed Realm,
Where kindly Light could his bad Karma overwhelm
And unite him with the spirit of his destiny,
Placing him where he was properly meant to be.
The fear of Death troubles me nil -
The waste of Death leaves far too many holes to fill:
Too many lovely faces hid in dateless night,
Whose impressions linger still within my sight:
The Great Dame***, who virgin-eyed, found in Famine Street
"Our Christs'" reviving BLOOD now turned to ice
By war-like human's unceasing Greed and Vice:
For whom "the moulds of generation died beneath that Ray"
Which, sightless, issued from the belly of Enola Gay;
Max Dunn****, naughty fibber yet devotee true,
Who, ignoring money, did exactly what he had to do,
Who each day looked the Buddha in the eye
And taught: "Who seeks to know all of the loved will see love die.";
Shmuel Gorr, his pupil, so wild in love yet to Devotion meek...
Whose angry death still left him up the creek;
Jas Duke, late dadaist, a victim of med'cine and disdain,
Who, due to careless negligence, died in slow and awful pain.
John Cash, Bill Iggulden, great makers both,
Who went....
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*Deirdre Cash, who wrote two novels under the name Criena Rohan. The
first, 'The Delinquents', was made into a film staring Kylie Minogue;
the second was 'Down by the Dockside'.
**Leo Cash, of the Gawler Cash's. Yeoman farmers who came to S.A. in
the 1850's. They were dispossessed of their lands by the banks in the
Great Depression. Related to Martin Cash the famous Tasmanian
bushranger.
***Dame Edith Sitwell, the great British poet, whom I met in Sydney
in 1963.
****Max Dunn, Tasmanian born poet, printed his own books on an 18th
century press. His fanciful C.V. published in the Penguin Book of
Australian Verse (1958) caused him to be dropped from subsequent
editions.