{"id":1074,"date":"2007-10-01T18:24:47","date_gmt":"2007-10-01T18:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1074"},"modified":"2020-12-14T13:46:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T13:46:16","slug":"two-pieces-by-ivor-murrell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-pieces-by-ivor-murrell\/","title":{"rendered":"Two pieces by Ivor Murrell"},"content":{"rendered":"

All for thirty Yuan<\/span>


Crossing Tian Na Men<\/span>
fluttering midnight kites soar<\/span>
above the rickshaw<\/span>

Who flies kites at night?<\/span>
Somewhere on the darkened square<\/span>
dreams tug on taut strings<\/span>




At a funeral of the previous generation<\/span>
(For Jamie and Rupert, with confidence! February 11th 2000)<\/span>


Passing time before the funeral watching strangers<\/span>
weigh their flesh against the sloping street.<\/span>
Age balanced by effort.<\/span>

Seen through the bay window of a former grocery<\/span>
in which the faded gentry had thickened their outstanding ledgers,<\/span>
a grey haired man slipped past, last seen in youth,<\/span>
and in each pane the image blurred from boy to man<\/span>
man to boy and back again, six lifetimes in an instant.<\/span>
A speed to mock the act of killing time.<\/span>

Later, watching our sons at the funeral I found myself unsettled<\/span>
not by death, but by change in life.<\/span>
They stand confident and at ease, and I note with pleasure<\/span>
the focus is with them, this is their time, they have its measure.<\/span>
Only by their tenure do I recognise my loss<\/span>
and sense the gentle terror of my new position<\/span>
just this side of the balance.<\/span>


\u2022 Ivor Murrell retired last year to coastal Suffolk with his wife, after running the trade association for the UK malting industry, He was previously one of the last floor maltsters in the country. The Beijing double haiku was written in 1993.<\/span><\/font>
 
 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All for thirty YuanCrossing Tian Na Menfluttering midnight kites soarabove the rickshawWho flies kites at night?Somewhere on the darkened squaredreams tug on taut stringsAt a funeral of the previous generation(For Jamie and Rupert, with confidence! February 11th 2000)Passing time before the funeral watching strangersweigh their flesh against the sloping street.Age balanced by effort.Seen through the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haibun-tanka-haiku-haiga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24127,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions\/24127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}