Penguins, pulp-paper rough-page set books
matched the texture of duffel coat pockets,
cost threepence on streetside stalls, fuelled
the Robbins generation socially mobile
red brick universities welcoming freshers,
Beatle music blaring in bun rooms and writing rooms,
common rooms and bars, sounding in satchels
wherever we carried our three-guinea hardbacks.
Penguins served bravely, the purple Latin,
sky-blue sociology, Psychology
not Today but Fifty Years Ago,
smooth red of politics, old grey Huxleys,
cherry-colourer Cherry-Garrard never on the course.
The brown of the great Greek dramas. Call no man
happy until he is dead, buried and forgotten.
Call not Penguins happy yet. They saw a time
of hope and education, striving more than strife,
opportunity without the clawing back
of non-existent money, but poverty
for a purpose. Students neither
arrogant zombies nor lost souls,
nor best advised to skip degrees, to stir
the dirt and fog of moneymaking
so as to be in with a chance. Of what?
Heritage, the past translated
in stored neat woodpulp shelves,
those block coloured covers, those black adverts,
sanserif headings and old style poster scripts,
disintegrating photo sections, line
diagrams interchangeable between subjects,
The inky names. The thumbed bookmarks.
O Penguins, if I could ever go back in time
I would use you as tardises, your light bright
newness and hopefulness, the mindful glow
of your expectations. You did it,
you hung on for a century, just as alive
and as limited as those who read you.
By solemn necessity I have outlived you,
to be a guardian of your influence and power,
as your small even shapes, your memorials
gravestones of past pernicketiness
and overflowing detail, a dated store,
still line my shelves, till the glue crumbles,
paper falls apart, and all you and I have said
fade with us, our share in worlds gone,
all diminished in this last perspective,
our failing yet satisfactory lifespan.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
A wonderfully written piece, Sally. Thanks for sharing Peace