Month: September 2018

young child
takes to the stage
and plays her part
with the sure knowledge
that nothing comes
without the call
and without the call
we are nothing at all.

I’m driving down the highway
through the King country
to Taumarunui,
the car stereo at full volume.
The sun is shining
but the tears are rolling down my face
as ‘Proud Mary” kindles his memory.

Still the words come,
crafted from a pure belief
that holds fast in the face
of unrelenting adversity,
it will sustain her
even if the river
should be crossed.

She takes joy in this day
day of all days
neither yesterday
or tomorrow
she does not bury it
or waste it
or despise it –
on this one day
she rests
and has her being.

The moon is angry,
black clouds attend its path
like smoke from a smouldering fire.
It rises over the city,
casts a cold eye over
a man and his blanket
cowering for shelter
in a CBD doorway.

The thorns and the weeds
of human identity –
from master and slave,
superior and inferior,
male and female,
lost and found –
appear to have strangled
the notion of role and equality.

When we had the hammer
we didn’t use it to build but to break
and now the broken pieces of racism, poverty, warmongering, child sacrifice and human trafficking
have become the crosses
of our own crucifixion.

The black trees stand close together,
the night is upon us and no path
can be seen, for the light has not
yet broken the darkness or sent
a golden shaft to penetrate
our hearts.

When the clock is ticking
against the broad horizon.
the pressure is on to live in
small segments of time,
to not look too far ahead
but also not to stop believing.

I wondered at the words,
and how they came to be,
he said it was
‘deep, mournful,
moving, explosive
and then, release’,
I didn’t plan it so,
that was just how
it wrote itself.