this new heaven
bumpy and accelerated
white frothy isobars
changing like my moods
this new ocean grey and calm
or moody, what sits beneath
is above and
I forgot to let the ladder fall
land hovers
ungrounded
accumulations
waiting for gravity
to adjust
static waterfall
dance of plumage
white flowering
waiting
for the forest
to take over
these trains sound
like mountains moving
exerting so much will
and I can’t help but feel their efforts
I feel run over in the morning
as I wake up to another
gut-guzzling wall of sound
crushing me
into the physical
this hill juts out like a gumboot
among sandshoes
splashing into the bay as a child
dances in puddles
I am all by my self up here
over looking many memories
and tides
I feel so held together
I am in the outcrop of trees
and in the northerly swirl of sea gulls
they track past at eye level
and lift like a slippery thought
I have the windows closed
the memories tap quietly
the wind has a beat
the house a drone
the birds use it as a blackboard
we sit on the floor as students
a sanctuary
in the long white clouds
a drowned valley of sorts
a crowning forest of sorts
the place I love so much
to write about
and words visit a lot
through tempered with
silence, the beautiful
meanings; the abstract
understood
without explanation
like my daughter sanctuary
your valley and legs
your womb flush and fertile
muddled with new life, this
confusing spring
and your thick mass of vines
and veins and lush boggy fluids
and what decay you bring
what decay you bring
and these centuries can only live
here because of the fence
(to keep out, not to keep in)
like the wind
way up there hardly
touching me
down here, I visit a lot
and I write again
not the obsessive pawning
of notes but a light
flexibility for my pen
and my hand to scribe
when I come before God
in hope that this place exists
(as I find it) for everyone
as prayers within the prayer.
That long spine of a trunk I saw
last week, some 20 minutes walk north
is less a spine now, more a telegraph
pole waiting for its final polish
and the sea has done most of the work
stripping it to a shine and the sharp
gum is fresh when you peel back
one layer (easy as dead skin)
and that glue underneath, the resin
smelling – what ordinary man
bottles – sea breeze pine. And
the extra ordinary sand:
Exfoliation.
I went for a walk today.
How do we know when to turn back?
I pose this question to those of us who are not greedy for time.
Has it ever struck you
Paekakariki
that the bells and lights
- intermittent though they are –
and the robotic arm
accompanying many a rumble
is an interloper
from …
indeed … where from?
It strikes me
Paekakariki
you have a gate-keeper
who, strangely, sounds like
a librarian trying to get attention
as an MC at a smokey RSA
don’t ask me why – because I also
imagine her in a red polka dot
dress, A-lined, and wearing
dirty glasses.
Yes it strikes me,
she’s a main-trunk line guardian,
and this guardian of yours
has a clear preference
an artistic bent –
she paints pebbles and fences
picks wild clover
and clucks like her hens
she scrambles her eggs, not boils
and wears gumboots that go slosh
not squeak, yes
to pass through
is easy
she is ever welcoming
but it is altogether another thing
to stay –
to stay within the arms
of this gate-keeper
means something larger
than a fall outside of life
or a diversion from State Highway 1
This gate-keeper
is an interloper
blown in from high.
I can hear her.
She says change-change-change-change
Changing your view
means changing your life –
let it be known;
she doesn’t return everybody.
Some will never leave.
