The rain fell in drizzling sheets of grey,
sizzling on the tin roof
as the smoke from the chimney
wafted into the fine line
between the night and the day,
there it was lost in the eye of the mirror
peering back the other way.
She sat foreground
in the frame of the window
against a background of green bush
and the distant ocean as blue as the sky;
she was there, always for this moment,
sitting, contented.
I always remember his birthday
for some reason that remains a mystery;
could be that childhood lives forever
on the twenty second
and those five-year old school days
have never lost their innocence.
I am here now,
travelling done,
the blue sky
the yellow sun
the green bush
and the Aorere estuary
filled with a welcome tide.
The wind rustles the tussock,
dances with the tin chimney
of the new house in a song
we have known since
first we took shelter here.
The wind is whistling
across the yellow broom
at the base of these
Central Otago hills.
The song is a deep song,
stirring the bones
of the familiar,
holding our breath so still.
I will stop now
and make joy
out of these days
that are left to me.
I shall feel them,
each one,
not through the
numbing stupor
of fog, but through
the clear eyes
of that distant light.
THE HORSEMEN
In the centre of the road
The righteous have yet to rest
The thunder brings the stoning
And the horsemen from the west.
ON THE LEFT
These tussock hillsides heaving
Driving spikes in easy flesh
Here is the resurrection
In truth, Herod laughs in jest.
I THIRST
Thumbed a ride on bitumen
A hard task master for sure
Sank below that desert thirst
For a drop of water more.