Tag Archives: nature

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

The stonewalling shag

The shag declined to be interviewed, 
wouldn’t allow a photograph, said she knew nothing
about the fish carcasses.
“Ask the throttle-and-munch-em sea riders 
who were here last night.” 

She didn't have a song,
just a certain way of puffing her chest,
of being exactly where she was:
the rock pools, the purple crabs, 
the decomposing seaweed, the curve of the bay. 

A rock higher than the high tide, an easy take off, 
these were her piper and pilchard.

“Off the record, my silence was inevitable 
considering my original disposition 
to dive down under the horizon into the quiet.” 

After a long pause, 
while still looking out to sea, she said: 
“It's like this, those carcasses were of fish I knew
in the way that you used to know the sky at night.” 

“Take what you want from that, 
I don't really care.”

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