Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Preface
- Foreword By John Lucas
- Prologue
- To Tasmania with Mrs Meredith
- On the Right Side of the Earth
- We meet at last
- I've been wanting to ask …
- Dear Mr Simpson
- Taking things in
- A Bummer
- Swanport
- And for the Record
- Fax from Launceston to Michael
- A Hasty Rejoinder
- Something you can't deny
- The Interview
- In Mount Field National Park
- News of a Death
- On the Answering Machine
- In Flowerdale
- Hadn't we the Gaiety?
- About as far as we can go
- Your art Mrs Meredith
- The Princess Theatre, Launceston, 18th October, 1995
- Threads
- Journal entry for Tuesday, 31st Oct.
- Dangerous I know
- A Poem for Wybalenna Chapel
- Making an Exhibition
- A Last Glimpse
- Epilogue
- Melbourne Central Cemetery
- Select Bibliography
On the Answering Machine
from On the Right Side of the Earth
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Preface
- Foreword By John Lucas
- Prologue
- To Tasmania with Mrs Meredith
- On the Right Side of the Earth
- We meet at last
- I've been wanting to ask …
- Dear Mr Simpson
- Taking things in
- A Bummer
- Swanport
- And for the Record
- Fax from Launceston to Michael
- A Hasty Rejoinder
- Something you can't deny
- The Interview
- In Mount Field National Park
- News of a Death
- On the Answering Machine
- In Flowerdale
- Hadn't we the Gaiety?
- About as far as we can go
- Your art Mrs Meredith
- The Princess Theatre, Launceston, 18th October, 1995
- Threads
- Journal entry for Tuesday, 31st Oct.
- Dangerous I know
- A Poem for Wybalenna Chapel
- Making an Exhibition
- A Last Glimpse
- Epilogue
- Melbourne Central Cemetery
- Select Bibliography
Summary
I heard about your loss and am sorry for it,
even if the Berlin woman was past hope:
a life of acetic sourness obdurately borne.
I think your grandmother was the same,
using grievance to demand respect, blind
to the irony it doesn't come that way
or is not worth having if it does,
so that (your Blake knew this) the wrath
doth grow. But you understand that.
And I am conscious I'm not serving you
except with platitudes: death always stings
and your dear wife will be awash with guilt
as daughters will at times like this. It happens.
I'm flattered of course that you're
not flying off (hard for you either way),
and that we will continue our conversations.
I wasn't going to tell you this,
but I'm beginning to have a sneaking regard …
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cutting the Clouds Towards , pp. 43Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1999