The Story of a Plague
I sorrow at the darkness of the news
Of mortal pestilence and storms of shame.
I watch scoundrels fighting to hide from blame
Or blur their definitions to confuse
The madness that has led to deaths, not mine,
Not yet (that’s still impending), but a score
Of millions, numbers mounting, many more
Than bleak reportage can enumerate
__Or rolls of loss define.
A time has been, I think of it with pain
And joy, pain since it could no longer last,
Joy since it was, though fallen to the past,
When breath came easily, immune from strain.
Now air flows raggedly, uncertainly,
Into my laboured lungs. And I am one
Of many this pandemic has undone,
Caught in a net depraved research has cast,
__Unnecessarily.
Winter comes at last after a long, sere
Autumn turned long-suffering forests dry,
Brown and barren. Now deep rain floods the sky.
Hail beats the sandy ground. Faces appear,
Broadcast through the world, striving to evade,
With voices brash or fearful, nervous, stunned,
The guilt of old decisions made to fund
The making of a sickness. Nor may I
__Rest in the growing shade.
Here is something new, never seen before.
A far-flung plague, its provenance concealed,
Bereavement, maiming, never to be healed,
While journalists pursue their futile store
Of shrill distractions. Weather pounds the walls.
And in the sadness of the shattered globe,
Grim congressional dignitaries probe
Excuses, cowardice, deceit revealed.
__The chairman’s gavel falls.
I too have managed funding, seen reports,
Met the gaze of politicians and faced
Federal inquiries. And I have traced
Studies and treatments. What shall be my thoughts,
Encountering how charlatans have thrown
Treasure at crazed experiments and spread
Illness from town to town, left many dead,
Wrecked schools and shuttered businesses, displaced
__Lovers to gasp alone?
I watch witnesses bluster, squirm or fence
With questioners’ enraged or measured eyes.
I find them helpless to perform their lies
Rehearsed to face this hour of consequence
I sway before the failures and the harm.
But anger is a passion that can kill
And ruin intellects. Patience can still
The gales of rage. And innocent blood cries
__In fleeting hours of calm.
The Sun Falls
I fight for breath, attempt to think and fail.
The sun falls from its journeys in the deep
Valleys of sky, drops to green seas to sleep.
I watch a fading, ocean-going sail
Crossing the twilit tides from east to west,
The secret world of strands and cold, quick schools,
Feeling the long disorder in my chest,
Consequent on a plague sent forth by fools.
It desolates my moments, weeks and hours.
Seagulls explore and quarrel in sea showers.
Night tides compel the mountains to obey,
Pour histories across dark rocks and reefs.
And memory calls back forgotten griefs,
Guilt of an evening’s circumstantial play,
Or others’ reckless crimes, not to be healed.
How is it some can look across the coast,
The moving sand, the sounding, rippling field,
The questing eagle, settling seabirds’ host,
Knowing the swift infection they have sent
To wreck the old, the young and innocent?
How is it some can watch the stars arrive
From wells behind the sun to pierce the night
With images of ancient silver light,
Then scurry back to shadows to contrive
New lies and obfuscations of their shame?
Though cruelty surrounds me, and my hands
Are far from guiltless, I shall love the flame
That made and holds the stars, the coast, the lands,
And grants me moments by the changing sea,
The shoals of life, the waves’ long melody.
Michael Robinson lives in Australia’s southwest. He has worked in health policy and has managed funding programs, grants and contracts. His poems have been published in numerous print and on-line journals. He has won awards including the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and the Tom Collins Poetry Prize. His books are The Tiger in the Vineyard (Ginninderra, 2015), The Music of the Streets (Ginninderra, 2017) and The Wounds of Faith (Immortalise, 2023).
