Poem

Harbour

by Judith Bishop •

September 2022, no. 446

Poem

Harbour

by Judith Bishop •

September 2022, no. 446

As if
the black window
at the solitary pass
from I to this (or you or now)
could let a human mind
slip through the glass
once,
let’s practise seeing water,
looking hard at the harbour,
that detritus of worn
mussel shells, rock ledges
graffitied
with an ecstasy
of lichen, waves
writing out the riddles
of harmonics,
breath held
for a moment
as Elizabeth Bishop
in her posthumous voice
says cold dark deep
and absolutely clear
to the innermost air,
despite the murky distance,
surfacing
grey like a wandering seal,
as our minds try
colluding with existence
in a fantasy
of what we might
be doing, or imagining
we do, standing at the sheer
bald windows of our corneas,
beside a grey
harbour on a careful
winter day, feeling
sharpened, conjugal
and stuck

Judith Bishop

By this contributor

Judith Bishop lives in Melbourne, Australia, and has studied in the United States and Britain. She is Director of Linguistic Services at a multinational language technology company. Her poems have won many awards, including the Peter Porter Poetry Prize (2006, 2011), an American Academy of Poets University prize (2004) and the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship (2002-2004). Her translations from French poets (Philippe Jaccottet, Gérard Macé) have appeared in Australian and international journals. Her first book, Event (Salt, 2007), won the FAW Anne Elder award and was shortlisted for the CJ Dennis Prize, the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, and the ASAL Mary Gilmore Prize. Her most recent collection is Interval (UQP, 2018).