Waiting for the Past

Waiting for the Past: Poems by Les Murray, 78 pages

In this short collection, Les Murray celebrates the poetry of the everyday.

     embracing your knees in opposition

     you show inner thigh, and lift

     toe-horn turrets which will grit

     the flooring with grey beetle bix.

And explores the temporal rhymes of present and past.

     A youth, rusty haired

     as I was in my time,

     rocked atop a high stool

     as he read a book from

     the stock he was to sell.

Murray's poems tend to be short and enigmatic, often surprising with sudden turns of phrase and rewarding rereading.

     Leaves absorbing light

     steep it in syrups down

     into the buried world.