Eratosphere - Quadrant

Quadrant arrived today, with lots of good stuff. I've reviewed Alan Gould's new novel for Les Murray, The Seaglass Spiral. Alan is a terrific novelist as well as one of the best poets of our times. I knew him through his Selected Poems, sent me by Paul Stevens, and from our many appearances together in Australia. There is a generous page of Gould epigrams and a substantial poem in this issue. Les also published an ambitious poem of mine, Work Early, and my very short elegy for Paul, written as soon as I learned of his death. Because nobody here (except Whitworth and Murphy) reads Quadrant, and its online version is behind a pay wall, and because I know how fond many of you are of Paul, here is the little elegy. Tim

i.m. Paul Stevens

I’ve two main types of prayer—
for the sick I ask God to spare
and those for my pagan friends
who meet their untimely ends.
You’ve moved from one prayer to another,
older brother.

Your life? One of such grace
surely you’ll see His face
beyond the Promised Gate.
Let you have long to wait
before a church tower tolls my bell.
Hail and farewell.

Ps. Paul Lake just took Sixty-two for First Things. As Paul Newman once said, "Sometimes it just feels like you've got oil in your elbow."