Elegy In The Clutha Valley

This beautiful, poignant and deeply affecting poem in memory of Denis Glover was written by Brian Turner, one of my favourite New Zealand poets.

[ Denis Glover's contribution to New Zealand Poetry is immense. The mere fact that he started 'The Caxton Press' in Christchurch helped New Zealand  Poetry at a seminal time. His own poetry is important, especially to old Cantabrians such as myself. His poetry about sailing around Banks Peninsular prompts wonderful memories of my own times of sailing this area with my dad and his shipmates. Glovers "Enter Without Knocking - Selected Poems 1936 - 71" that I have recently read shows the poetical development of one of New Zealand's most colourful characters and inspired poets. ]

ELEGY IN THE CLUTHA VALLEY - Brian Turner
(In Memory of Denis Glover)

Something we will never know

the reason for

or the answer to

woke me one November morning

and streamed through the half - open window

and made me feel it was timeless,

.

and I remembered a day

that will always be long ago

when I was older

and better able

to stride off over the rolling downs

in search of all the best reasons

.

in the beleaguered world

to do or not to do,

and to be in touch with oneself

wherever heart and mind

had come to agree

on where we should be going,

.

and let us think this

could be so. Then, the world's ill

flew from the shoulder

of the highest hill

around, and thereafter the will

took a bolder part in things

.

and my heart lept

to the blind mountain

from which scree flaked

and water bled all day long

to the downy valley floor

where, in the evening

.

I took my rod and my heart

to the river's side

and cast and cast

while water

ran red and gold

in the quickening dusk,

.

and the sedges

fleeing the river

were like ash

at my face and throat

and all the world

seemed to be timeless

.