Competition
2006 Winners
Joy Chambers & Reg Grundy Award – Open Local Poetry
I Wonder by my Troth
by Chris Hamerton
I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we lov'd?
Were we not wean'd till then?
John Donne.
To know that someone, someone like me,
Armed and legged normally,
Provided like me with friends,
Who may not be
Of any use at all when the chips are down,
And with their best years, if
they are over 20,
Behind them, wrote those words
After first thinking, feeling and knowing
them,
Disturbs me more than I care to admit.
Due to a collaboration between the Creator
And several of His Executive
Powers,
Whose wisdom (I have no doubt)
Must be at least the equal
Of their sense of humour,
I have always been one of those people
Whose lives are in a large degree
sheltered
From the excessive pleasures of propinquity.
And truly, I do not complain.
When I see so often down the line
The dust and ashes of things
That once flared away
So brightly,
And the good people now condemned
To live out their lives amongst them
In, at best
A kind of bafflement,
Truly I do not complain.
But reading those words still disturbs me
More than I care to admit.
