Learning To Know One's Place

(For Gwen Harwood And James McAuley)

'Hello Graeme, old love, it's Gwen,
I'm sitting on a cloud too fine
For jealousy to let you see.
But please believe your ears as I

Exhort you not to bow to age,
To keep tramping around in search
Of at least one poem that will be
As sure of fame as all mine are.

There's still life in your Hell's Gate's, West
Coast of Tasmania being that's
Done well despite the limits of
Its origins encumbering you,

The baggage you can't shed to fly
As high as I have done, or Jim,
Who sits upon the right hand side
Of you-know-who and sends his love'.

Graeme Hetherington