The Dolphin Badge

In a carton in a corner of a drawer

I came across a badge, sky-blue, the size of a coin:

for proficiency in the pool,

the Dolphin Badge, the dream of years, the grail . . .

And so, or so it seems to me,

the odd dishonour of discarded things, their sad dismay,

is maybe telling us life is too fast

for the right living of it;

and maybe too in some scrambled dawn

the notion might come

of a press of tiny judgements,

some essential fabric torn.

©Leonard Lambert from Winter Waves (Cold Hub Press, 2018)

Leonard Lambert is a long-established NZ poet with a publication history stretching from A Washday Romance (John McIndoe, 1980) to Somewhere in August: Selected Poems 1969-2016 (Steele Roberts, 2016). He is represented in Essential NZ Poems (2003 and 2014), Swings & Roundabouts (2008), and Poems from the Pantry (2017). Between poems he paints beautiful and mysterious works which he exhibits regularly in Hastings and in his home town of Napier.