Poem: Off Pentecost

Off Pentecost

Pentecost island, Vanuatu archipelago, 1994

Let us dip through this copper green

then cobalt blue water

like pilot whales dolphins and porpoises

taking our cares out to sea.

We could pretend then that we are too

masters of the universe, changing utterly

all that we pass through by just our presence.

If I were of family Cetacea, I would

have myself called Comet, whilst my daughters

would be Honaria and Trinity, in memory

of Honor Lelepa and Truganini.

My son would be Green, both after Sidney’s knight

and worthy modern causes, but my wife’s name

would not change, for like her, it is beautiful.

One season we would all think of swimming

to Tahiti just for the news, whilst another,

up to the Bismarck chain and Manus

to meet those strange dark men in clay masks.

Perhaps we would even discover Péhe-nú-e,

that legendary tiger-whale-of-the-Pacific-under-moon

that inspired Moby Dick’s story, but certainly

along the way and deep below

we would see the lost tears of all the world

and the birth of volcanoes

around the Ring of Fire. Returning then

to the surface – not for air as men

think we do, but to give word of all

things in this world that are breathless –

we would discover how then

sky and water are one, as once was said was so.

John Miles, along with works of literary history and critique regarding the Australian Angry Penguin Modernist poets, is the author of five books of poetry. The recipient of both national and international poetry awards, he is also recognised for his work on the poets of the 17th century English Metaphysical school, and those of China’s Tang Dynasty, while he is currently engaged in study of American Confessional, and women poets. A past poetry editor of the 1990s literary journals Stet and Australian Writer, he has been the honorary poetry editor for Solstice Media’s The Independent Weekly, and its online successor InDaily, from their inceptions in 2006 and 2010.

‘Off Pentecost’, is from John’s collection Honor: A Vanuatu Suite and Envoi, manuscript 1994, published 2016.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.