A poem of farewell

What is left to say?

All the large words
have been spoken.

I’d take one of the
smallest words, like love,
wrap it in a warm breath,
tie it in a knot of flax,
and leave it, nonchalantly
on your papers.

A small green leaf
among the river stones.

Don’t throw it out
by accident, or crush it.
Put it in your pocket
where its touch
might sometimes
warm your fingers.

-- Adrienne Jansen (1947- ) New Zealand teacher, editor, and poet 

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a journey I must take
Alone into my childish fears, and there
Confront my fathers for my children’s sake.

I must go back before I cease to care,
And the world darkens and I cannot move.
Forgiveness is a journey from despair

Along a path my ancestors approve.
I must go back and with them make my peace:
Forgiveness is a journey into love.

-- Alistair Te Ariki Campbell

Place

Once in a while

you may come across a place
where everything
seems as close to perfection
as you will ever need.
And striving to be faultless
the air on its knees
holds the trees apart,
yet nothing is categorically
thus, or that, and before the dusk
mellows and fails
the light is like honey
on the stems of tussock grass,
and the shadows are mauve birthmarks
on the hills.


-- Brian Turner (1944- ), New Zealand poet

This poem was printed on a signpost at Lake Matheson at the place to see this view.

Looking West, Late Afternoon, Low Water

The typical tidal range, or difference in sea level between high and low tides, in the open ocean is about 2 ft (0.6 m), but it is much greater near the coasts.—Desk encyclopaedia


Our beach was never so bare. Freak tide,
system fault, inhuman error, will it

never stop falling? After dark, said
the tables of high water and sunset

pasted on the wall, which don’t deceive.
Come on down for a walk while there’s light.

A wall of pale green glass miles above
head high alongside, complete with fish

crossing, is what will have been the wave
once it has broken. Leviathan is

the beached cachalot we left Bob Falla
filleting for science, the ebb to wash

away these fifty years, each one smaller
than the last. Come down, this is today

delivered factory fresh, in colour
heated by the late sun. Time to try

looking on the bright side, or join those
Great God! (says the poem) who’d rather be

suckled in a creed outworn: but whose
cast-off cult’s to be the lucky one?

Great waters, unfinished business, done
blind to the deadline. From that rock, to

this tree was tapu and it sticks. Thin
pickings, Tangaroa, this is pakeha

story time, only Okeanos and
sister Tethys having it off; the way

they love makes hairy cliff-hanging seas
roll drums on the sand, the 3-metre swell

flat on the seabed bangs the pubes,
very ancient and fishlike they smell

close to. Divine all the same. Dangerous,
not to be approached, least of all by

mortal man whose years are four-score plus
tomorrow night. While I count the three

strong swimmers carried past out of sight
round the North Rocks the whole shoreline shakes

underfoot again, dead friends call out
not to be heard. Look west, what looks

back is blood-orange nightfall, the stooped
sky drowning another sun overboard

where the horizon was: till it snapped
those deep-sea moorings and will be heard

oncoming, the sound of a scream, tsunami!
tsunami! splintering deadwood of the boat

I lost half a life ago, swept
away with a judgment on the work

she’s amateur built but your friends won’t know.
Last seen, one inflatable rescue

craft stood on its tuck, bows to skyward
in fast failing light, a turning tide.




-- Allan Curnow (1911-2001), New Zealand poet, teacher, and reporter.

Tangaroa Nui

Last night I dreamed again of tides,
not those tides rocking soundlessly
in caves that shuffle old men off
in their extremity, but those inner
tides that have their source in dreams
where my father, astride the passage,
reins them in with outstretched hands …
I saw again the tides plunging
in harness, sea and sky boiling
together, and myself a child flipped
high into the air by a dolphin,
to float down softly as a feather
past my father’s smiling eyes, past
the wheeling seabirds, to settle
on the sand and fall fast asleep
with the tide beating in my ears
as surely as the heart of him
who checks the pulse and flow of things
and holds time in his hands.


-- Alistair Te Ariki Campbell (1925-2009), New Zealand poet of Cook Islands and Pakeha ancestry

Tangaroa is the god of the sea.

Image: surf at Napier, Hawke Bay

Among the Redwoods

Farewell to such a world! Too long I press
   The crowded pavement with unwilling feet.
Pity makes pride, and hate breeds hatefulness,
   And both are poisons. In the forest, sweet
The shade, the peace! Immensity, that seems
To drown the human life of doubts and dreams.

Far off the massive portals of the wood,
   Buttressed with shadow, misty-blue, serene,
Waited my coming. Speedily I stood
   Where the sun wall rose roofed in plumy green.
Dare one go in?— Glance backward! Dusk as night
Each column, fringed with sprays of amber light.

--E. R. Sill (1841-1887) published in The Atlantic in 1884)

Today's Adventword was "peace."

Snap

What if the wave were to stop
just as it is, snap-frozen?

What if the blowsy wave flowers stopped,
a rip in the valance, each fine blue stitch
and still holding its silver needle?

What if the sea did indeed stop
and all the vegetable armies, the grasses,
mad bunches on the stony dike,

the lupins, their heavy perfume stopped,
the starfish, pale asterisk on the stony page,
the polyps stopped, their strange juices frozen?

What if the gulls and all the terns all stopped
and the tiny black swallows
that zip up and down the midnight lagoon?

What if the sun itself were to stop,
no longer rinsing blue from the loveliest ice chamber?

Then we would be the wonders here,
like the seals, little fallen angels in the dry valley.
The bones in our hands smoothed
like long white gloves, our fine pelt wind-dried,
gravel in our brain pans and our eyes.

-- Bernadette Hall, New Zealand teacher and poet, from Fancy Dancing, 2020

Sea Changes

Strange times have taken hold on me,
strange seas have locked across my eyes,
thick in the twilight undersea
unheard-of-silence heard these cries.

Out of the glimmer of green waters
the ringing deafness of dark seas,
such dim-begotten sons and daughters
of love and cold flesh death are these:

Uncertain are they hunting on
and all their faith’s inconstancy;
they are who touch and straight are gone
yet have no other where to be.

--Allen Curnow (1911-2001) New Zealand poet and reporter, from Valley of Decision, 1933

Oh Great

I was trying to decide 

whether it’s better the oceans are rising
than if they were drying up –
I mean emotionally, not scientifically – and
I couldn’t decide which was better
or worse, an abundance or absence,
to drown or to die of thirst.

-- Jane Arthur, New Zealand poet and owner of Good Books bookshop in Wellington

Image: River shoreline

Autumn

When autumn hits here,
the leaves tend not to fall.

They cling and quiver in the wind
like our disappointment in them

and the few that fall go slippery and annoy us.
The light, though, thaws our cold hearts

and we don’t even care we’re being cheesy
for a moment or so. Who needs

a new cliché? Not us, not
when there are bigger things to worry about –

and not when it’s still possible to put them aside
to look at the low shadows, the glow

of the evening sun across the branches
of the trees that refuse to be anything but green.

-- Jane Arthur, New Zealand poet and owner of Good Books bookshop in Wellington.

Travelling

How normal it feels
to get around new places—
how basely, physically normal it is
for our feet to touch the ground
and propel us forward, step after step
exactly as they do anywhere.

And if these roads home
one day become
the rivers they once were—
though we might have to pedal the currents
or steady our soles on pebbles—
we’ll soon get used to it.

A flavour’s only new at first taste;
and common sights become invisible;
and love dulls into something necessary;
and in grief we think this new lack
is impossible to live with but we do.


--Jane Arthur, New Zealand poet and owner of Good Books bookstore in Wellington.

Absence

I never eat sensibly when you’re away.
I make do with odd scraps of food
that don’t need heating up,
or nibble on a biscuit or two.
Under the pine trees
the dogs wait through wind and rain
for your return.

I fiddle with a poem,
searching for a true rhyme,
but settle for less.
If it gets any colder I may light a fire,
or I may not.
I take up a book of poems,
but after a few pages I put it down.

Far away the sea climbs the road
that you have taken,
and lazily climbs down,
leaving a white smear.
Under its plume of cloud,
Kapiti drifts towards Australia.
It will be another long day
before you return.

-- Alistair Te Ariki Campbell (1925-2009), New Zealand poet and playwright of Cook Islands and Pakeha ancestry.

Parachute

She would never have jumped alone and seeing
the world like an immense crevice she might
have abandoned the tandem jump if the
instructor hadn't had Greek god genes. He
smiled at her reassuringly, she nodded
and they were off, her fear turned to delight
with the motorcycle which gravity
had given them. She approved his delay
in pulling the cord. Then she realized he
was pulling the cord. She'd picked Icarus
instead of a god. 'Keep calm,' he yelled. Next,
more quietly, 'Sorry.' She scanned the ground for
haystacks piled ten high. She looked up and caught
a glimpse of the plane, a mocking feather.

-- David Beach (1959- ), Wellington-born prize winning poet, and mail sorter at the Australia and New Zealand postal services.

St Andrew’s Day under the Southern Cross

GOD bless our land, our Scotland,
Grey glen an’ misty brae,
The blue heights o’ the Coolins,
The green haughs yont the Spey,
The weary wastes on Solway,
Snell winds blaw owre them a’ —
But aye it’s Hame, lad,
Yours an’ mine, lad,
Shielin’ or ha’.

It’s Hame, it’s Hame for ever,
Let good or ill betide!
The croon o’ some dear river,
The blink o’ ae braeside.

God bless our land; it’s yonder –
Far in the cold North Sea:
But ‘neath the old Saint’s glamour
It’s calling you an’ me:
Your feet tread Libyan deserts,
Mine press the wattle’s bloom,
But to-night we stand together
Among the broom.

It’s Hame, it’s Hame for ever,
Let shore or sea divide!
The croon o’ some dear river,
The blink o’ ae braeside.

God bless our land. We dream o’t —
The days aye brakin’ fine
On the lang, lane glints o’ heather
In the glens we kent langsyne.

Ay, we are Reubens, rovers,
‘Neath mony an alien star,
But flaunt the blue flag o’er us,
Pipe up the ” Braes o’ Mar,”
And steppe and nullah vanish,
And pomp and pelf and fame —
It’s gloamin’ — on a lown hillside,
An’ lads, . . . We’re . . . Hame.

-- Mary Symon (1863-1938), Scots poet and translator who wrote in the Banffshire dialect. This poem is for all the Scots abroad.

Image of the Southern Cross from the New Zealand observatory.

A Path of Stars

There are many things
I would like to tell you,
my darling

My darling,
I would like to tell you
in this life
everything will be okay

I would like to tell you
that you will walk upon a path of stars
that you will travel through the forest
and never lose your way

I would like to tell you
to look only at the stars
and not the gaps between them
to look at the sun
and not the clouds.

My darling, I would like to tell you all these things
for the same reason we read fairy stories to children
and weave their years with mythologies
because there is comfort is such lies
because I want the world you live in
to carry more magic
and less sharp edges.

But, on this dark night
I have run out of comforting lies.
My darling,
I cannot promise you a path of stars.
some days you will walk upon
unforgiving concrete or sharp-edged gravel
some days you will wade through quicksand.
Tonight, I cannot conjure stars
without the black between them.

My darling, I can only wish
when you walk through the dark and tangled forest
and lose your way a thousand times
that one day
you come across a clearing

where you can sit
and where the sun will find you
and warm your face
and where you can rest.

My darling
you can rest.


--Rose Peoples, New Zealand poet, lawyer, and student from Te Awakairangi/Lower Hutt

Image: "Enchanted Forest" by Madeline McGovern

Always on Waking

Always, on waking, I look out into treetops:
I lie beside you in the shimmering room
Where, whether summer morning, shell of dawn
Or dazed moonlight patterns leaves on walls
I wake to wide sky and the movement of treetops.

As the leaves flicker (thin scimitars of opaque
Dull green the eucalyptus bundles over her bark strips)
They become lucent; leaves lined with sunlight
With moonlight are no longer drab
But seem scimitars shining, are not now opaque.

While you are there I am nested among leaves;
As sparrows come each morning for breadcrumbs
So I look for your still face beside me;
Without your calm in the face of what wild storm
I am no longer nested, but desolate among these leaves.

—Ruth France, New Zealand poet

A Walk With Your Father

Before you do anything else, check your lungs.
Are they the right size for you, are you the right size for them?
Are they nice and snug against your ribs and spine?
Don’t worry if they’re a bit big for you, you’ll grow into them.
They must be full, however; you don’t want them empty.
You have a long way to go.

Put your hand inside your mouth and make sure
everything’s in it’s place, check that all the pipes and hoses
leading from your lungs into your mouth are in position and in good nick.
You don’t want any leaks or sudden explosions
this is your air we’re talking about.
Close your mouth securely around this apparatus.

Next check your weight. If you are too heavy
or too light you won’t get anywhere. By the way
there’s no need to take a whole lot of extras with you.
Some people strap expensive knives to their legs and wear protective gloves.
There’s no real need for any of this – an ordinary old sharp knife
from the kitchen drawer will do. And just your bare hands.
You may need to signal to each other.

Now pay some attention to your skin.
It should feel secure and warm
but also allow plenty of room to move freely.
There are any number of colours available nowadays –
they all do pretty much the same job.

Your feet, are they the right size?
If they’re too large you will tire quickly,
too small and you’ll be left behind.
You’re probably looking at feet
about the same size as his.

Your eyes – spit in them.
It keeps everything clear.

That step you’re about to take
will have to be wider than you’re used to.
Don’t forget to move forwards, not backwards.
Keep your hand on your mouth so everything stays in place
when you break the surface.

Mihi to Tangaroa. Mihi to Hinemoana.
Now get yourself in under there,
immerse yourself.

Do it now, go.
He’ll be right behind you.

--Hinemoana Baker (1968- ), New Zealand (Maori) poet, teacher, and musician born in Christchurch 

Becoming a Redwood

Stand in a field long enough, and the sounds
start up again. The crickets, the invisible
toad who claims that change is possible,

And all the other life too small to name.
First one, then another, until innumerable
they merge into the single voice of a summer hill.

Yes, it’s hard to stand still, hour after hour,
fixed as a fencepost, hearing the steers
snort in the dark pasture, smelling the manure.

And paralyzed by the mystery of how a stone
can bear to be a stone, the pain
the grass endures breaking through the earth’s crust.

Unimaginable the redwoods on the far hill,
rooted for centuries, the living wood grown tall
and thickened with a hundred thousand days of light.

The old windmill creaks in perfect time
to the wind shaking the miles of pasture grass,
and the last farmhouse light goes off.

Something moves nearby. Coyotes hunt
these hills and packs of feral dogs.
But standing here at night accepts all that.

You are your own pale shadow in the quarter moon,
moving more slowly than the crippled stars,
part of the moonlight as the moonlight falls,

Part of the grass that answers the wind,
part of the midnight’s watchfulness that knows
there is no silence but when danger comes.

--Dana Gioia (1950- ), American poet and former executive at General Mills

Mana

when you flow through my body

I know
I am caught in the current of a river
larger than the length of my own lifetime
it bends where we have all been before
same rapids
other waters
our veins
my blood
I know
I am in the flow
of something greater than my own self

--Karlo Mila (1974- ), New Zealand poet, of Tongan, Pālagi and Samoan ancestry. Mana is an untranslatable Mari word (actually in 29 languages in the Pacific) that means honor, a supernatural life force, prestige, charisma, which can be inherited but also can grow or decrease according to one's actions (like karma).

Rain

I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain

If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I
should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind

the something
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground

the steady
drum-roll sound
you make
when the wind drops

But if I
should not hear
smell or feel or see
you

you would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain




-- Hone Tuwhare (1922-2008) One of the greatest Maori poets of New Zealand, NZ poet laureate from 1999-2000.