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Poetry

Traffic

And where, but in constant circularity/Is all this moving headed?/The answer Cannot be death…”

The sound of traffic builds and subsides—

A composition of engine noise and

Tires, an occasional trailer rattle—

In its accompaniment, a vaguely circular 

Swaying comes and goes in the full, 

Leafy ends of branches and boughs

High above and overhanging 

The river and its pale reflected sky.

 

Traffic, wind, and water flow in steady

Variation: Drawn, forced, encouraged

According to essence, need, desire, 

Environment—the whole complexity

Of being—and so the mind, the heart,

Travel inwardly, traipsing amid

A world apart, in a motion of light and

Shade, as that of the passing clouds.

 

And where, but in constant circularity,

Is all this moving headed? The answer 

Cannot be death, for it is no impetus 

To continuance, but the given end: 

And this then is journeying without 

Destination, where revolution follows 

Revolution, as a disturbance in dusty trees,

In the flooded valley, on a winding road.

 

Harold Jones is a New Zealander, educated at Cambridge University, where he was awarded a scholarship to read English. For 20 years and, more recently, another ten, he sent no work for publication, preferring to work at its development. His work has appeared in major poetry journals in the United Kingdom and New Zealand and has won the attention of leading critics and poets, among them, Ted Hughes: “I hear a real voice, a real movement of mind cutting through resistances.” Recent work appears in Merion West and VoegelinView.

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