SUBURB AT NIGHT
THE lamps come out like flowers upon the dark; Hills disappear; only when close at hand know flaring light Of man’s attack, now shining net strung wide, Stressing his borders. So are the ways shown plain For timid feet; houses, like shells, translucent, Glowing upon the slopes. Here no mistake; And bus brings cettainty at stated times, | Another shell, half eaten out by man’s Accomplished white assurance, moving with swift stride. The lamps of homing cars bore bright And painful tunnels into the shrinking dark That owns no place,.usurped; so, too, the pale stars. Sometimes the lamps go out; power fails, And through the zero hours men sleep in savage dark Pressing, urgent, upon the obdurate hills. No roads remain, no net; no fearful house betrays Its presence to the enemy; and over the foetal land Stars blinding blink; aeons can be counted here And the sea sounds, fateful, through centuries, lf moon should rise and free the dark-drowned land No cortnfort creeps; shadows are Silurian, and Dinosaurs dismay where rock outcrops seemed real. Moon. you have no mercy; give for the small soul
Blaze of electric light, or dawn, upon the highway. -_
Paul
Henderson
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 927, 17 May 1957, Page 13
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198SUBURB AT NIGHT New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 927, 17 May 1957, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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