No company today

Sunday alone, legging up Hemi Matenga powered by timtams and how fit I wasten years ago. Tripping on roots sitting uplike suitcase handles on the clay hard angles. No company today but crisp leavescompound, serrated, the young fern coils.Tonight scallops and beer in Whangarei.And here I see only … [Read more...] about No company today

Goose summer, Whareroa Farm

Today we dawdle up the north-east valley track,inclined together on the edge of sun and shade.Late April, and decline – the year’s and yours – feels gentlein this spread of after-season summer. The sky is crazed with gossamer.We might not have noticed if we hadn’t pausedto lounge against the … [Read more...] about Goose summer, Whareroa Farm

Hope

It  is to  do with  trees: being amongst  trees. It  is to  do with  tree ferns:   mamaku,  ponga, wheki.   Shelter  under here   is  so easily  understood.      You  can see  that trees   know  how it  is to  be bound   into  the earth   and  how it  is to rise  defiantly into  the sky. … [Read more...] about Hope

Looking at Kāpiti

Sleep, Leviathan, shouldering the AsianNight sombre with fear, kindled by one starSmouldering through the fog, while the goaded oceanRecalls the fury of Te Rauparaha. Massive, remote, familiar, hung with spray,You seem to guard our coast, sanctuaryTo our lost faith, as if against the dayInvisible … [Read more...] about Looking at Kāpiti

Prawn tide

As the sun came up, a faint frost dusted dunes and tussocks then disappeared. Behind the breakers white vapour floated, throwing a veil over island hills haunch-hunkered by the water. The moon set pink this morning; now red prawns flow and writhe in lines along the tide mark in a plague of plenty. … [Read more...] about Prawn tide

Good Friday

TawhirimateaClaims the air tonight,Blinds the outward eyeWith needles of rain.TangaroaRides the full tide in,Pounding the mind’s beachesIncessantly with Sound. NowOld altars will be overturned,Judgemental gods forsaken,Guilt, shame, sin,CrucifixionOf the innocent self,Cast out as devils. The … [Read more...] about Good Friday

The creek

We choose leaves carefully, the kind very green and glossy on one side light bouncing and bouncing off them. White on the other, midveins clear, veins clear, and in the curl, of their own accord they curl, we place three petals say, or 14 seeds, or an earwig. And now as evening falls we tear … [Read more...] about The creek