Poetry

Gatherings

a spindle of light
ghosts among the palm trees
sit and stare

silent surroundings
the breath of dog
on crisp air

willow wood and sand
creeping sap where
children play

fill the gap
soundwaves
blossoms on stems

bitter cake, forks of bilge
where trying is
never enough

fumbling for flesh
no gaps
space is overrated

the jumble sale
all laid out
a red cushion

a spinning leaf
black trunk of tree
spider web

sun for breakfast
winter wind
a heron on the lake

hills where sky should be
a forest of damp logs
and fungi

The Garden is a Spacecraft

the garden is a spacecraft

landed in a whirl of flashing

orange pink yellow shining green

between rows of possibilities

beside rows of snaking, shuddering vehicles going

nowhere and

everywhere

where bees settle to drink from purple

haze of lavender and the euphorbia is

iridescent in its limeness

orange nasturtiums have broken loose

tumble now across the rhododendron skyward then

earthward to conquer new lands

the tall thin tree with no name that was almost

at the powerline abandoned now where it was cut

unsure where to step next and shouting at the sky

ice daisies from a shore suburb are launching

their deep crimson takeover at the edge of the

universe and a shot pink blowsy peony shakes its

petals over its companions

the miscanthus grass is levitating

reaching up so fast the view of the almond coloured

vireya will be hidden from view

next door Mutabilis is fooling the world

blush pink cream magenta rose tangerine

mixing it up all over

painting the sky

tucked behind the magnolia an echium begins its princely

rise to kingdom’s head where it will dwarf most else

and keep the late summer bees in endless nectar

leafing all over is the baby willow

honouring the old stump that was its predecessor

caught by the big dry two summers back and

now turned into bowls

a black compost bin languishes beneath the rhododendron

feeding the local rodents who enter and exit through a

latticework of tunnels

yesterday a rainbow knocked at the door

It was too wide to fit through the doorway so I

stood their uncomfortably wondering how to

offer it tea under the verandah

not speaking it just smiled and lifted itself up higher

sheltering from the afternoon sea breeze in the branches of the

ornamental plum up close to the powerlines

the calendulas took on a fiery glow more

orange than orange

echium spikes turned ultramarine and the euphorbia

wove itself into a cushion of gold and lime cross stitch

i stood in the doorway transfixed

unsure if I too would be transformed if I ventured into the

world of the rainbow and if that would be okay

it rained then

cold drops from a blue sky

how can that be?

and as quickly as it came the rainbow took off taking its paintbox

There is a time in the early evening when the

light on the willow and the rows of vines across the road

are so golden you want to catch it in

buckets and keep it for when the skies are dark

the light has its own sound

drowns out the traffic and owns the

plains that stretch out from the house toward

distant hills

it hangs in the air so lightly

the moment so brief there is not time to

find the camera

demanding all your attention there is nothing to do but

be in it peach

salmon pink

fiery red

back to blue

You planted the magnolia five years ago

it came in a box from the north island with a label that

has gone now so you don’t know

what it is

for five years it has done nothing but sit solid

sometimes you are not sure if it was even breathing

no leaves until now the fifth spring

perhaps it was just finding its feet

showing an interest in its surroundings you

clean around its feet to

give it encouragement

you bought it for your mother who is now dead

she is always in the garden

particularly in the blue ixia that raises itself from the

tub under the verandah each october

you bought it because it was blue and your mother

loved blue

so much it inhabited hern

clothes

rooms

furniture

The verandah is overflowing with

remnants of winter

big black tubs that last year held the

winding beans from crete with

pale ochre shells

wait now for emilia

bishop’s flower

dianthus

purple sweet peas have a head start

cascade over blue lobelias that seems

to live through every season

forever

the bath tub from france is glowing still with

pansies purple

burgundy

Yellow

a scarlet geranium is front of house

snging the loudest

next to the tub of plump limes

the garden is a spacecraft

twirling in rainbows

The Artist

Today I dreamed I was back on the ocean at the
bottom of the world
on water not the shade of childhood pictures or pacific reefs but
Emerald and Viridian mashed together
squelching Black at the creases of
wild whirling pools as bow dives deep and
foam rips the surface
a hundred spinning cartwheels a minute
I hear you
feel you
heaving cauldron of water and ice
breath catches
threatens to peel skin raw
I carry my brushes close
winged salute to raw unencumbered space
no room for anything out here but what is
Sometimes
in thick melting treacle of dark
a tinge of gold where my
heart beats hopeful toward the horizon and
all the way
home.
In honour of artist Sean Garwood’s Antarctica Exhibition,
The Arts Centre, Christchurch. October 6 – 9 2017

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Explore unique prints, cards, and writings today.

Passport to Reside – Pōneke

(POETS ON THE WRITERS WALK competition run by Wellington Writers Walk and the Wellington Branch of New Zealand Society of Authors for Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day 2023 - WINNER OVERALL)

there’s always an edge here, our birth town

torn, moulded, shaken, upthrust, downthrust

greywacke crushed, exposed, set to flee when hills roar

the harbour a slurping bowl for Cook Strait

relentless in, out, rewriting coastlines with

every southerly

deepest of green town-belt, illusion of calm while

hill dwellings cling tighter to foundations

at every storm and shuffle

there’s always an edge here, a town for the brave

where the Great Depression sent desperate

forbears house to house for cheaper rent

furniture whisked out back by neighbours

as bailiffs arrived at front

our father walked Ngauranga Gorge in gales,

rocks tumbling ahead and behind, to

court his love in another suburb

on the edge of the world at Maungaraki

auntie and uncle taped picture windows

terrified of tempests and shattered glass

there’s always an edge here, land bulldozed

to temporary subservience awaiting

revenge of time, tide and all that quivers

passport to reside granted only to those who

join the dance of sea, wind and icy rain while

fault lines murmur, threaten to brawl

Greenslade Park

The world is as wide as it can be this

patched up morning

winter confounded by early spring

slip sliding away

A shag glides to its nest

big fish in mouth

the fledglings ravenous always

big feather coats to fill this

diving summer when it comes

Richmond hills a chequerboard of blues

shells once here embedded in

their clay banks by

time tide crack of earth

Down here water sweeps

around the bend

pine green under dying macrocarpas

into cerulean blue

A long boat glides

deft oars silent before

catching the shore

the paddler dries himself

in the crisp air

it's not an easy life he says laughing

the water goes this way and that

just an hour each side of tide

to get there and back

He has circled Rough Island

inlet to channel back to inlet

making the day sing

Published in Best Life Magazine September 2024

Earthquake

I have been tipped up and down since you

I have been tumbled, washed and dried

over and over but still not clean

I thought I knew myself

I thought I knew this world of ours

I thought we knew our history

But I knew nothing

I have been through doors these last weeks

That have been shut

Doors of silence with libraries behind

I did not know were there

I have had to walk on stones

Learn to balance

Practice

One foot then the other

Slowly carefully to not fall

It would be easy to fall when all you know

Is not as it was

The kaleidoscope its turning

Slowly

Colours slotting into space

New patterns

What was red is green’

What was yellow is blue

It will take time

Much time to understand

My place in this new world

If you had not come

I would have stayed comfortable

Easy unstirred

You say that criticism is a gift

I am digging up seeds

That have eons of criticism wrapped around like husks

Hard to break

But inside kernels of the unknown

Now known

Do I fear this path

It is a relief to know that those other journeys

Are so different from my own

I have always held out my hand

Some take it

Some do not

But never in this space

Where blood runs so thick

Through the layers of earth

on which we stand

Where all is not as it seemed

How much we need to know our history

To understand our present

To be able to walk in footsteps lightly

Not thumping footfalls on the ground

That disturb those

Whose paths we have taken

There are signs of those other lives

Some rise now

Their voices long and loud and strong

We live in this one land

Two people then many peoples

Now we have to find a way to connect all the colours

Of the kaleidoscope

As fractured as it is

As broken

There is no one else can try but us

Stepping into each other’s histories

Wide eyed

Not to conquer or override

Not to bring the curtain down and hide

No no

We have to open the wounds to see the blood

To feel the pain

To be able to walk again

The fish are there

The grey heron is now wading

Its long legs compelling it

The white heron has spread its wings

To air dry them

It is preening now

That big bird

Queen of the tide today

In the middle lumps of land still shown

Grasses hardy in their midst

Driftwood caught and shackled by the tides

Curving turning different

The bay is wide the mountains cast their shadow in the clouds and on the

water

White caps on land and in air

While there are brown sludge of a tide

Through this middle

Raking the bottom

To make it clean

The Bookworm

Love’s library lost – not I said the bookworm making another space for a shelf for another

book and

another and

another

Travels inward and outward - a shimmy across the world – here there and everywhere

Much more than its presence on a shelf

It catapults across time and space to memories past

I hold the book on woolcraft and am at my spinning wheel again

making a jersey for my boyfriend, hands soft with lanolin

There is the one on crafting with cane. The bath is soaking willow and I am filling the room

with garlic

holders to sell

at a local fair

The book of Japanese verse and I am spilling haiku on the page

sun for breakfast

winter wind

a heron on the lake

Books are my bedfellows and my secret loves

They are where I run to hide from the madding crowd

They are for wallowing in and for shining lights in dark places

A book is for yesterday and today, to have and to hold

Some books are not for reading just their being there is enough

They are a comfort and a familiar breeze across my brow

There is no brusque feeling of worry quite like losing a favourite one. Tonight when I lost “How

to wrap 5 more eggs”

panic set in as I examined every spine willing it to be there

The relief when it appeared, nestled in behind The Meaning of Flowers

The bookworm is content amongst the shelves of coloured spines that vye with each other

for attention

A library that holds the world in its hands.

The bookworm is content.