By David Mason

Like one of those old steamer trunks

from which a clown withdraws

the scarves and stockings, the typewriter

and the bright kazoo, instruments

of his funereal slapstick, our unpacked dreams

go under. Like aspiring temples

already toppled on the trembling earth,

they rise and fall. What is that whimpering

but old age residing in an infant soul?

I asked, Where do nightmares come from?

And she replied, We don’t come here empty.

Like clay pots in the ribs of a sunken ship

once full of civilization’s oil and wine,

we are such stuff—the stuffing out of dolls,

the emperor without a name

who leaves his grimace on an office door. . .

Is it the dark that scares us or the light

of endless labyrinthine journeys?

Whole cities live within our crania

before we have a word for cities.

The gods outlast the lives of their believers.

The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Proces

Having seen enough of the incompetence of politics and the rapacity of corporations, not to mention the numbing discourse that clogs the Internet and most of the media, I return to the arts, particularly music and poetry, to find the place in which our humanity in all its dimensions can be fully seen. As Miłosz reminded us, “One clear stanza can take more weight / Than a whole wagon of elaborate prose.” I am still trying to write that one clear stanza.

Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation?

The health of the sea, where I swim nearly every day in Tasmania, has been seriously compromised by mismanagement and terrible corporations like the operators of open-cage salmon farms. I see the evidence when I swim the kelp forests and find the fish depleted, the sea birds fewer, the seals vanishing. This is not the world I want to leave my granddaughter.

A former poet laureate of Colorado, David Mason now lives in Tasmania. His books include Ludlow: A Verse Novel, The Sound: New and Selected Poems, Pacific Light, and the forthcoming collection, Cold Fire. He is also an essayist and librettist, and is married to poet Cally Conan-Davies.