Sport 38: Winter 2010
Elizabeth Smither
Elizabeth Smither
Tony Hoagland farewells the poets
The Aldeburgh train has two carriages
and carries at least ten poets
scattered among the passengers.
The festival at Aldeburgh is over
and in several cars the poets have reached the station
in time to farewell their hosts with platitudes
(they are tired of words now and rest on platitudes)
and here comes the same fateful train they arrived on
less significant-seeming, smoking and grimy
and they travel backwards into the landscape
some poets facing the engine, some the reverse
because poetry has a place alongside other bodies.
But at King's Cross Tony Hoagland gathers them up.
He springs from the front carriage, bowing
and sweeping his arm like a hat
'Poets,' he declaims and looks fly his way
above the thundering feet. 'Poets'
and we are gathered before the blinding exits.
The nurses are coming
2.55 p.m. and a swing door opens
and five nurses in dark blue
mid-calf-length slacks and V-necked
tops adorned with silver watches
each with a sheet in her hand
detailing the last vital recordings
the progression of signs which they read
in a glance. In Room 5
all but one line is being taken out
and the morphine is two-hourly.
A head sinks into a little folded towel
deep in a pillow, like a snow angel
and the nurses walk, bunched together
down the polished linoleum, past
the open doors of the dire, not looking
yet, just walking, just coming on
the way stars come out, flicker
and gleam: We are here, we are arriving.