Poems by Ashley Halpé

April, 1971

I do not know the thin reek of blood, the stench of seared flesh, the cracked irreducible bone; I know only the thinner reek of pity, the harsh edge of self-contempt, the ashy guilt of being too old, salaried, safe, and comfortable. I would know their reasons, the rigour of their hot hate, their terrifying faith. But they have said everything in dying, a communication beyond all our speech.

I sit through night hours trying wonted work, compelled into blank inattentions by these images young bodies tangled in monsoon scrub or rotting in river shallows, awaiting the kind impartial fish, and those not dead – numb, splotched faces, souls ravaged by all their miseries and defeats.

Letter to a student

I want to see you not as an ant crawling the campus spread below my house, – this huge flower fragrant with shadow, peaceful under big winds – but the horrible suffering face I suffered of you sitting before us being enquired into, bent over the thoughts that drew in your cheeks, blackened your lips, weighed on your eyes. I’ve heard you were sunny, I know you have talent; you have already bowed your shoulders to history. I have tried to understand, have ventured to love. I am rebuked: stooped lone ant with a cigarette, the afternoon burns with the slow white sear of your distant hopelessness.

University of Ceylon
October 1967

Reprinted with permission from Ashley Halpé.