The Job of Paradise

It is the job of Paradise

to comfort those who’ve been left behind,

 

to think that all those loved and lost

would live on there like tiny gods.

 

It is the job of mumbled prayers

to help you calm your hurts and fears.

 

It is the job of the long black hearse

to show we head to death from birth.

 

It is the job of a clean neat grave

to remind us how to live our days.

 

If only I could live my days till death suffice

and make Earth feel like Paradise.

from A Portable Paradise (Peepal Tree Press, 2019), © Roger Robinson 2019, used by permission of the author and the publisher.

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Roger Robinson is a fervent, generous poet. His most recent collection, A Portable Paradise, won both the 2019 T. S. Eliot Prize and ...
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