To An African Child Starving To Death Poem by Rory Hudson

(References to the nightingale and the Grecian urn are to the two wonderful odes by Keats, and the athlete dying young recalls the lovely poem by Housman) .

.....................................

You unprepossessing brat!
You are no nightingale, no Grecian urn,
not even any athlete dying young -
ah, dying young perhaps, but you never were
an athlete, never strove,
never achieved,
never broke
any records, nor, I suppose,
any hearts that might mourn for you,
except perhaps for your mother,
who sits there dumbly with sagging breasts
waiting for you to die, staring vacantly
from no past that could ever be celebrated
towards no future in the burning sands.

God curse the fate that brought me here
to have to write an ode for such as you,
unmemorable, already unremembered
even before you are dead!
to write in such a horrid spot
revolting in its barrenness and heat
that never ends -
that brings no peace ever -
that brings no poetic thoughts -
no inspiration -
nothing but dull, prosaic perspiration
which I must wipe from my brow
as you stare at me
with those damned eyes -
the eyes of the damned -
the innumerable damned -
and what am I to do?

I would rather look past you
than see those hollow eyes
and sunken cheeks again;
but all I see is your mother close to you
sitting wordlessly
as it were in reproach -
but what am I to do?
I had a mother too, you know -
she is dead now,
as, no doubt, you also soon will be
and no doubt your mother too.
She would look -
she would look like that
at me sometimes hopelessly
reproaching my incapacity;
my lack of any ode;
my inability to see
my nearness to death.

I see that you would like to speak,
but you cannot, your throat is too parched,
as I am too parched
to write as I should write
an ode to you
to save you some kind of immortality -
ah, if I could,
I promise you I would,
to save myself also some kind of immortality
and even relief from the drought of my life….

I see your skin is dry;
it is like parchment in the sun.
I touch it, and it seems to cling -
it chafes against me -
under your ribs I feel
your heartbeat impossibly faint,
the pulse of your life trying to reach my hand
as my arms reach for you through the dust in the air
to feel your death coming for me in our embrace -
and let us share this,
for I know
that death has visited me like this before,
leaving me unpoetically, impotently to die unmourned,
as my soul may die again now without an ode
in your clasping skeletal arms
reaching out for mine
as I hold you close and precious -
my unprepossessing
anonymous brother.