The little creeks are running again
filling again
falling again
and the forest moss lifts up its voice
in floods of rich green bryophyte harmony
tiny birds dance in manuka thickets
frequenting musical puddles
trilling again
tinkling again
twirling ferny tails in circus circles
the dry cracked earth is soaking up the blessed water
like hardened hearts learning to trust again
softening
ready to sing
A Change of Heart
We need a new philosophy
what will it take to tilt the wind?
can we whistle in a new story?
a fresh breezy narrative
with more than a whiff
this time
of moss and mushroom
fern and feather
Wolf! Lift your nose to the changing wind
fresh as spring
old as water
feel it lift your fur
let it ripple around those great powerful shoulders of your’s
luxuriate
breathe in that most precious thing
a change of heart
– Artwork by Jenny Rattenbury
Story Maps
In this intimate vast mountain
the landmarks are my family’s story
A safe place
even in its wildness
even its ever-present perils are beloved
Our feet know the way
so our spirits are free to go wandering
Gentle layers of noticing and knowing
Repeat repeat repeat
Growing a map of connectivity and love
time space imagination happenings
deeper and richer
as we walk, sleep, walk again –
Huddle against storm
or swim in some gurgling pool under a summer sun.
We name the rivers
We remember our adventures
We notice a diving karearea
or smoky blue mountain orchid
Everything goes into the map
Wasn’t it right by Three Tarn River, that Easter,
that my boot fell to pieces and I had to cross four ridges in just a sock…
Peter met me with another pair of shoes…
Walk, sleep, walk
Heading north, heading south,
knit purl knit
for years
even generations
Weaving a family fabric of story and land.
Tumbleweed at Te Henga
The sand blurs on the dunes with the squall blowing in
A child balances halfway up with arms waving like indecisive scales
Out comes the tumbleweed
This is their time
They are flying and cartwheeling
Careering over the blurring land
First just one, then two more
Rolling at great speed uphill
and along the ridge
Rally drivers but a thousand times more airy and daring
Three more appear – swooping around the sand bowl
tumble dancing on spidery limbs over and over
They are all heading down to the lake
riding the western rollercoaster wind
swerving like wild skiers on a slalom
with no pause or control – taking those corners
At this speed, they’ll make the olympics
but over the brim, the gale hushes
the dancers run out of oomph
thready legs stumble and mire in sand…
That was it for the day folks
Time for a swim
The child runs in, yelling
Image credit: https://tomassobekphotography.co.nz/
Tolkien would have liked this place
Paired impressions in the dark damp earth lend me downhill.
Someone else uses this place but they are not human.
Someone meeker, possibly pronged.
I discovered this spot a while back – camping out.
A secret stream, hiding in forest and flax, quiet and flecked green and gold with river grass –
criss-crossed with black submerged forest flotsam.
Gaze into maps of golden deep, edged by oceans of dark shade.
Twiggy reflections walk down into a wobbly mazy wonderland of inverted roof.
Dragonflies both red and cobalt blue zoom in pairs or hang, wagging up and down.
It’s hard to reach down to the water.
I have to wedge both feet into recessions in the bank and dip one hand to guzzle the cool water, while hanging off a bush with the other. I’m an orangutan!
Having sloshed down as much as I feel like, I can now pause –
pooled by warm sun, gold water and increasingly damp bum.
A single reed curves out over the surface cupping a hollowed out cove.
Watch that floating bit of stick.
It tries to beach itself going against the reed but is batted away and caught in an eddy.
It circles around past my useful bush, back against the mossy bank and my wedged foot then repeats the process, batting that reed back into the eddy and round again.
Four times it does this.
Look closely and the eddy is made up of a series of spinning whirls of water all circling past the curvy reed and backwards round the hollow like a series of juggling balls or spinning moons orbiting – except they lack a planet.
I’ve been so busy watching the tiny emerging threads of water-mills that I missed the fact that my stick has finally managed to escape and vanish.
But here’s another one, trapped in the same cycle, like one of us doomed to keep facing the same dilemmas and responding in the same ineffectual way –
till eventually mere chance lets us spin off and float downstream to the next adventure.
Letter to My Sister
Written for ‘Given Words’, August 2020
Suzy
Do you remember that summer
we stayed with Grandma in York Bay
Aeons ago
Two cross-country children
I’m sure it was your idea to map the stream
from the bush to the sea
We were obsessed with tunnels and found at least four
zigzagged back and forth under the road
and through the neighbour’s gardens
hands and knees through stones and broken bits of concrete
Weaving around civilisation but not of it
trespassing through respectability – crouched –
with heads just below the bank
Burrowing ragamuffin maggots
Explorers and pirates we were,
greedy for fresh discoveries and booty.
We documented our finds in careful calligraphy then dipped the finished product in the teapot for the authentic look
Remember the phase of trying to write each other letters
– in code of course –
with seagull tail feathers?
It didn’t really work
Then at night we were cocooned in Grandma’s snug sheets in our red spotty nighties
dreaming of secret passageways or invisible writing in lemon juice
Pesky little flies we were,
into everything and persistently grubby
always hatching up new and potentially annoying plans
Childhood imagination
so elusive
As soon as you notice where it’s at
it’s gone – only to reappear like magic
out of reach
at the top of a curtain
The Song
It’s a potter’s wheel that’s spinning ever whirling never stopping
and the potter’s supple fingers that are gliding round the clay
It’s a spider weaving spindle threads which find the sunlight glancing
on a web of thready spirals curving up to meet the day
You can pull it out in funnels, ease it out to purring rumbles
or release a tide of silence where the singer is the song
You can spin it out in circles like those children turning cartwheels
on a shoreline rimmed with breakers that the wind has blown along
Feel the fullness now of gravity, that’s warm and strong and thrumming
like a hive of golden bees or honey dripping off a spoon
The potter sends a whoomph of pulse to a wheel that keeps on turning
for a song that’s softly humming masquerading as the moon
Oh it’s spinning on a finger wearing shoes of sparking copper
lifting off like kindling fire that’s smoking with the beat
Vision misting no resisting and the dance is moving faster
so it swaps to sloppy running shoes and tears off down the street
It’s a theme that’s full of mischief, unexpected dodging turning
and it won’t conform to anything they’re sending the police
hard hats chasing, music racing and those shoes are getting hotter
It’s a band that’s being arrested for disturbance of the peace
Now it’s heading for the mountains to a place it’s been before
escaping to a land of ice where forest parts like hair
Receiving tangled lines of harmony the moss is sifting, seeping –
the song is like a river combing through the cooling air
Gazing down the Makatote to a rusty railroad crossing
and a train that sounds like sandwiches and chocolate chunters by|
Makatote, Makatote, chuntering, chuntering, chuntering by
Now the song is sounding longer stronger deeping down a pathway
to a lonely glowing mountain you can see through to the sky
to that lonely glowing mountain you can see through to the sky
From polyphony and harmony we’re down to just one strand
It’s a tune that you can pick out with the fingers of one hand
The stars ping out in blinking chimes as day falls to the west
and the rhythm’s softly sinking, fading out into a guess
Caterpillar
Escape
for my mother
I will put up the red tent under my apple tree
and imagine a new world:
Here I am in wild Fiordland again
where the kea cry out their songs of fire and anarchy
ringing from mountain to mountain –
Where the whio coo and clack their haunting love duets
and korimako chime like bells in the misty forest
Where robins sit pertly on my boots
kiwi scream in the night
and owls echo
echo
While here in this world we wait for the daily count of new infections
We queue like sagging puppets for food
Spaced out around the Countdown carpark
passive obedient confined
I will put up the red tent and steal away
The wildlands are still out there
The rivers still run clear
Morning mist still rises
and mountains do battle with the sky
Even the weather must do their bidding
Hunkering Down
The gin is running out at the liquor store
flour, pasta, rice and vogels bread fly from shelves
We must pickle our lives to see out the storm
like bottles of wine on endless revolving racks
brewing notes of boredom and bickering, potentially,
sweetened by patience and kindness, hopefully.
subtle hints of blueberry muffin
After the last suppers
After the last coffees
Students arrange last night trysts with lovers
before homing back to packs of their own kind.
A great toad lurks over the planet – spreading its slime
nudging victims imperceptibly, leaving traces of slimy poison to ripen – slowly
Each wolf pack must cosy down into its own burrow
birds into nests, hobbits into holes and badgers into setts
hunkering down till the coast is clear.
Capitalism might be munted by the time it is.
We prepare for a winter hibernation even as the sun shines
like Robbie Burns’ wee sleekit timorous creature
or moomintrolls in November
We try to be sensible ants when grasshoppers are more our style
The dog thinks it’s wonderful; we all stop going away the whole time,
The cat stretches a soft paw up to my chin
We can talk to other burrowers.
What are you doing in your burrow?
Are you fighting yet?
The lawns will grow and our hair!
We are the glassed in cells of one vast body turning in space
a whole world of shining orbs like street lamps
Uncountable neurons shoot off uncountable signals and messages
Mercury is busy in this year of the toad
flying on electrical wings
Meanwhile,
watch the sunrise
watch the sun set
hear the tui gorge on fruit up in the kahikatea –
croaking and whistling
rain, sun , cloud, stars
the Earth is still doing its thing
Observe closely for comfort,
stillness
This is a restful apocalypse
sunshine and birdsong within a storm of death
The earth heaves a sigh of relief
pleased to have some respite from our relentless busyness.
South Paw 