Monthly Archives: November 2022

Poetry

On this lucky earth

after W. H. Auden

Staring up from a field in Pakistan, your eyes
like the eyes of any child. Your face enlarged
on a poster, made so big it might be seen from the edges
of the human inhabitable zone on this lucky earth;
and viewed again on our screens, while eating
or bored in the common way, or just walking dully along.
The drones that hover their targets don’t see.

I sit outside a café at an unsteady table
on an uneven path, where another child, lifted high
on shoulders, waves her tiny hand. There’s a seamless sky
behind the weight of cherry blossom; and I’m unsure
whether to share with friends the image of you
—as pixels to the wind—or to simply forget
and build my delicate home the way I’d like it to be.

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Poetry

Path

I prefer paths worn to those laid out;
the blending of grass from centre to edge
by the passing of continual feet
rivals the shading of Old Masters.

Down these paths seed-head and flower
brush calves, but don’t impede,
because enough of us walk this way,
descending with each unique promise.

*

The southern wind edges the waves
moving across the bay; white lines of static
flicker and vanish: a jumpy picture of turquoise-blue
blotted with shadows from dampened clouds.

Amidst the froth and crests of roughening seas
the birds in the distance race to a haven
at the north end of Tokerau, where the sands curve
behind the rocks marked with Kupe’s net.

*

The rain comes. It’s too much to stay 
exposed on the stone altar
of a church, or in the circle of a henge. 
From the sea we must retreat.

I look back at the dimpled sand;
our footprints already fading. We turn
into the gloom of leaf and frond, follow the path
of pressed grass shimmering like a stream.

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Poetry

Big Love Song #21

after Arthur Rimbaud
 
It doesn’t mean a thing:
the pyramid eye
or the constellations,
not night’s scattered verse.

Smoking incense,
the bride’s dress,
the taste of dark wine—
it doesn’t mean a thing.

Neither does beautiful Paris:
the elegant avenues,
the asphyxiating decay,
the distant nausea.

Only your soft pure face
and the warm bed of home.

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