Nicholas Hasluck: Two Poems

Grandson 

The faint where are you voice

comes to us from afar,

softly, playfully, the words

going this way and that way,

not knowing where we are.

Here, behind the big curtain,

the oncoming footfalls pacing,

I am hiding in the silence

with my little man, his heart

beneath my hand racing.

His tiny heart reminds me

of his father’s heart, another day,

now lost in time, when my son

was here beside me, his whisper

giving the game away.

Brave, but not so brave,

swapping glances in the gloom,

it will all be frantic laughter

in a moment, as we dash

into the other room.

And so, the game runs on,

runs out, the end unplanned,

but something of myself will

linger here, a memory of his

heartbeat in my hand.

              Nicholas Hasluck

Barque 

An ill-fated barque

near reefs off Rottnest,

a cargo of building needs,

nails, windows, doors,

at risk in furious seas.

When its captain saw

the lighthouse-keeper’s

distant warning flare,

he mistook it for a beacon

promising a haven there.

And so, drawn forward,

the hopeful barque went on,

went in, as if at last he saw

a faint but friendly light

above a neighbour’s door.

An old anchor propped

on the foreshore now

points to the lonely place

where the barque went down,

leaving scarcely a trace.

Or points to this perhaps:

that nails, doors and windows,

homes we build or yearn for,

may come to rest at last

as fragments on a coral floor. 

Nicholas Hasluck