Thursday, September 29, 2011

On the death of her body – James K. Baxter

On the death of her body – James K. Baxter

It is a thought breaking the granite heart
Time has given me, that one treasure,
Your limbs, those passion-vines, that bamboo body

Should age and slacken, rot
Some day in a ghastly clay-stopped hole.
They led me to the mountains beyond pleasure

Where each is not gross body or blank soul
But a strong harp the wind of genesis
Makes music in, such resonant music

That I was Adam, loosened by your kiss
Form time’s hard bond, and you,
My love, in the world’s first summer stood

Plucking the flowers of the abyss.




O'Sullivan, V. (Ed.). (1979). An anthology of twentieth century New Zealand poetry. Wellington: Oxford University Press.

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