Equanimity

from First Essay on Interest Not usury, but interest. The cup slowed in mid-raise,the short whistle, hum, the little forwards shiftmark out intake of that non-physical breath which the lungs mimic sharply, to cancel the gap in pressureleft by our self vanishing into its own alert –A blink returns us to self, that intimate demeanor self-repairing as a bow-wave…. by Les Murray. The poem is from his 1983 collection The People’s Otherworld.This book contains a great many treasures, like Bent Water in the Tasmanian Highlands. That opening volte-face on subject I find amusing and intriguing. This is especially relevant as a previous book was entitled Poems Against Economics. Les Murray often confounds expectations in his writing.The real heart of the book, though, must be Equanimity. There is something about a writer’s early and later mid-period that is usually outstanding.It is after the writer has set out their stall of themes, attitudes, self-worth, and before the refining, honing that…