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A
poem for
Susan What
did we see? A
horse, one cow, two cows, and a transformer, The
property of the Eastern Electricity Board, Where, for a moment, holding the rusted paling You
felt the nervous hum of DANGER. That
was what we saw. Yet
what I saw I could not tell you. The
matter was not that I could not count them (As
you thought I could) The
spikes of grass along the river wall, Nor
distinguish between Tufted Dog's Tail And
Rough-Stalked Meadow Grass, Nor
find the nest of the two birds that piped Before
the sun sank in the marshes: Such
the assured occupations of another age, When
the Plymouth Brother left his little boy with a notebook Peering
into the aquarium, Or
the Statesman warned little T.C. Never
to pick buds in the flower garden. The
Reverend Mr Crabbe would have told you what we saw, In
another fashion, on those saltings: Your
father can only see with difficulty What
there is here at all. Not
that my eyesight is bad, for when the Kingfisher Darts
from the sluice, I catch him in a corner Of
my vision, and you share him, and even now Can
I lead your round bright eye To
the fish flash as the grandfatherly heron Bangs
him on the water under The Rocks? What
did we see? Remember
we saw a transformer? I
cannot even explain the transformer Except
that it changes power into power, And
makes an endless exchange of energy Which
seems to me meaningless, Much
as the sun does, lying there where a King's Fleet Once
anchored, Or
as we do, even when we, like the fish in the bird's maw, we Shall
be changed in the twinkling of an eye: DANGER Is
something I would not care to explain. And
as you grow older you will find your father still more evasive On
the subject of 'What did we see?' You
can countenance violence in the nursery The
carving knife, the cracked crown, 'She
whipped them all soundly And
sent them to bed, And
here comes a chopper to chop off your head!' -
I find it difficult: and do you see the give-away As
I wince, out of fear, and in shame? And
I am, I suppose, in a sense, irresponsible, Seeing
the sun fall like that in the marshes, To
clasp you to me for warmth as the salt mist rises. I
would hide the transformer from you under the grass And
hide the grass itself as it dies into straw on the dyke-wall, Clap
my hands to make the heron rise And
drop a wounded flounder in the water, Restore,
restore my heart again By
patching with pitch that rotten ribbed hulk in the mud, Float
it again, while you play in the bilge with a can, And
push off into the stream with the tap, tap, tap, 'That
taps the tarry boat with gentle blow.' We
might pretend it was a victory: The
seams might hold for a week or a month. And
what would we see? The
screws loosen in the rowlock sockets. The
ebb run and the flood flow. Along
each bank the high straw mat Marking
the long violence of winter: Nothing
spectacular. no redeemable flotsam, But
petty tidemarks of the world lining the coast. And
whether we went by sunrise or sunfall, The
one-legged bird beating. up the little fish, The
mess of weed and jellyfish rising and sinking, And
behind us the oar-puddles spreading Where
I changed power into power. But
you, being young, would lose interest Before
one more day sank: And
I would lose courage Before
the October winds rose. Shall
we not go home now and share the same comfort By
asking each other: What
did we see? And
answering (for I can tell you that) A
horse, one cow, two cows and a transformer, Belonging
to the Eastern Electricity Board - Because
this was written on it clearly enough, And the word DANGER in fading red letters.
By David Holbrook Reprinted with permission (forgiveness actually, because I had not asked before putting this up!) from Selected Poems, Anvil Press, 1980.
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