as though waiting for
the tennis to start
a plane’s boarding call
today’s speaker to come to the podium.
On windless days
gulls individually choose
which way to face
but always their disarray portrays
notes fallen from a sheet of music
iron filings in search of a magnet
words waiting for a poem.
Show time
windows besieged
by blizzards of blossom
magnolias in mauve bows
with green streamers
every tree a fringe festival
of rowdy flowers
Fulgura frango4
In the middle ages
a monk would ring his abbey’s bell
to exorcise evil fire from the clouds.
He probably knew when rivers of fog
shrouded his tower
it was clouds just lying on the ground
but a sky of towering anvil heads
meant the blacksmith’s blazing sparks
were not too far behind.
Without modern media, he wouldn’t have known
one hundred and three bell ringers
died in a flash in thirty-three medieval years.
Or, Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod
would one day prevent him from dying
as ashes to heaven’s fires.
So, with sackcloth hitched
he’d trudge the belfry’s steps (wishing it was fog)
and chant the words writ on his bell
fulgura frango, fulgura frango
I break up the lightning, I break up the lightning
and pray that it was true.
Variations on an early turning
Five days of rain, bitter gales
mass desertion of leaves
bedraggled blackbird, savage at
the last apple’s heart
pecking a cadenza for rain’s bolero.
Days of unseasonal cold too
snow on the hills, an early turning
as my own winter starts
with skirls of slurry and sleet
from the pipes that plumb to my heart.
In a boy’s body, after hard running
I remember lying listening
to ground-bouncing, pounding timpani
unaware the heart’s sound
will one day desert the body.
And you my love
try to mask your concern
but your heart rides tandem with mine
and taps a discordant descant
for my drug-induced adagio.
Today, for a heartbeat of time
the day mutes rain’s tattoo
unravels a sodden skein
from the sullen blanket of sky
lets through a quaver of white.
Not enough blue sky to make
a sailor a pair of pants
your father would say
before his proud heart surrendered
to time’s savage pecking.
Though long enough to display
the latency all days have
for light, warmth, death’s abstention
for playing arpeggios of hope
in a heart’s winter garden.
Tongues of ash
Army days in Waiouru, Wellington and its weather
The Snow-Sayer
Now and then
and as an aside
he would advise –
in the next day, or so
there will be snow.
When asked how he did it
he said he could read
between the lines
of a weather map
the code for snow.
To disbelievers he said
that TV forecasters
three hundred miles away
can’t hear pianissimo in
passages of snow.
Or, when news came
of his firstborn’s conception
it snowed, so now
he was fated to foretell
the birth of snow.
But at night, outside, alone
he sipped the wind
listened to the clouds
ran his fingers over the sky
for scent of snow.
Rangipo grounding
I looked around
Ruapehu’s5 apron
after the subaltern
bellied the rover
in a minefield of boulders.
Waiting for the NCOs
who’d seen it all before –
a new lieutenant
green as the desert was grey
trying to impress us boys
though he’d been told
not to go that way.
Behind, Ruapehu simmering
Ngauruhoe smoking.
In front, desolation –
a few tussocks, wire weed
desecrated earth.
I didn’t know then
about rain shadow
desiccation by wind
the habitats of lahar fields
or the conditions necessary
for things to grow.
Muttering wry derision
the NCOs
with knowing grins
levered, heaved, hauled it free.
Those dry, wiry, salty men
who supplied us with
the necessary conditions.
Navigation point on the Desert Road
for Greg Hill
The cutting’s orange side
speaks millennia in tongues of ash6.
Past it a mountain stream
corrodes the road each rain.
First, a short dipping straight
with sentries of black beech.
We’re halfway through
Greg said in his quiet way
pointing out the trees.
During Vietnam, Uncle Sam
licked Greg with orange rain.
Later, his life was cut in two.
He showed us how to get to
further yet, helped us with the pain
of that, made sure we all got home.
Coming back from leave
We watched you from Waiouru’s7 windows,
Ruapehu, all those years ago
though I never knew who was watching whom.
Summer days that could glaze clay pots
you would slip the Rangipo, shimmy in a haze
an impresario of water-colour washes.
I remember looking up, for no good reason
on those runs up Totem and round Three Kings
or when going home through Camp Road gate.
And there you were, closer than before
a rhinoceros with psoriasis
flanks shedding metal skin.
But was Waiouru really home? All those years
we spent yearning for the next
weekend away, long leave break, posting out.
Winter, coming back from Wellington
(from anywhere) you would appear
white on grey canvas, so still – still there.
The nearer we got, the heavier
the sky’s press, the deeper the pit
the closer the bars on the windows.
The sinews of Ohau Bay
One day, before the wind farm triffids grow
I’ll go to Ohau Bay
by way of Makara.
Maybe I’ll climb Terawhiti Hill
and watch Cook Strait8
bruise the heel of Wellington.
An old fellow lives in Wilton
the paper says
been going down to Ohau Bay
three times a week
for forty years.
Perhaps he’ll tell me –
It’s because the wind there
makes macrocarpas
kneel down and pray
or he’ll say
the la
nd’s bed here
is so unmade
or, Maui9 hooked the fish
right at this point
right here.
Petone Beach
book ends of hills a salmagundi of dogs
oystercatchers inspecting discarded cares
holding the beach together a universe of small holes
There are people and dogs walking in front of him, the whir of journeys going on behind. A tour bus pulls up and sets down its voyagers. They look longingly out to sea before forming high and low tides. Using a different sextant, they record their present positions. Gulls accost them, demanding food. The birds’ reverse sales pitch fails. The bus is re-boarded and rejoins the current of journeys.
in the mouth of Maui’s fish
sits the morsel
Matiu/Somes10
A small circus of birds performs on the beach for him – Jonathon Livingstone clowns, oystercatchers on stilts, two terns on a high wire and the ringmaster, a gull in a tux. Across the harbour on the Miramar Peninsula an out-size satellite dish faces north, like a science fiction altar to the sun. He suspects its real job is to eavesdrop on the subversive circus. He claps loudly, hoping to cause tinnitus.
what did you say?
he can’t hear you yet
Matiu/Somes
He hears the sound of the waves being blown out to sea by a tender nor’ wester. The sea is half asleep, breathing gently, harbouring energy for the days when it will play its timpani. A raucous gang of gulls surrounds a woman and Downs Syndrome boy sitting on the parapet. Gleefully the boy choruses their racket but mixes up the sounds of screech and squawk with those of dog. The confused birds press mute, back off, look for other sport.
in and out
on his eyes’ tide
floats Matiu/Somes
The West Winds Gang is back
Past masters of horizontal violence
skulk about town, by Featherston, on Stout
down Customhouse Quay. Bully boy racer
blowhards, they belt you in the back, throw sand
in your eyes, then hoon around night and day
all taunt, jostle, swashbuckling hiss and spit
drag racing in great gusts, trashing the streets.
Near Brooklyn Heights and Tinakori Hill
it’s hit and run for fun, breaking the limbs
of young trees and old ladies before
shrieking off to push and shove the ferries
and flatten the harbour. Oh for a big
High to arrest the lot, pack them off for
a spell in Makara’s Wind Farm Prison.
Wellington Southerly
Those whose windows quiz Cook Strait spy it first
a horizon smudge, a pencil line that
becomes a wall for all to fear and curse.
The sun, before so charming, smells a rat
grabs a jacket, gloves, hat, turns off the lights.
On the Valley’s river gravel runways,
gulls face south in staunch platoons, feathers spiked
shoulders hunched, ready for the stoush and fray.
White top relays are first to open fire –
harbingers of rain and ice, they charge the
harbour’s mouth, smash at teeth and gums, expire.
Then in Seatoun, Kelburn, and Khandallah
on earth and house, railway line and road
the weather bomb ignites its fuse, explodes.
What we were doing on Wahine Day11
Huge trees fell down in Christchurch.
I listened all day to the air waves
for news of the seas in Wellington.
Marg sat on a train at Ngauranga
waves breaking over the carriage.
Marg and I cried when Doug said
he jumped ship almost too late.
At Eastbourne’s nearest pub
Doug lined up a beer and whiskey –
and was asked to pay. We went round
the bays one day and found where
his lifeboat beached (the pub had gone).
Thirty years on he sailed again –
this time by fast-ferry.
The Bucket Man poems
for Robert Jones, 1942 – 2003
The Stations of the Bucket Man
1
One Monday, Mr Jones walked out
of his Tinakori Hill campsite
with his birth certificate
bank statement and will
knelt in the gutter
at the intersection
of Grant and Park Streets
and died.
2
He was an urban Man Alone
before he went bush in the city.
His mother said his downfall
was his (bleeding) sensitivity.
3
The artist who painted him
with a halo and cross
was asking us to reflect
on what we would say
if we met on the street.
4
He stopped daily
at the Golden Arches
buying coffee and a bite to eat
in lieu of loaves and fishes.
5
The stockbroker’s assistant
nearly threw him out
of the counting-house
seeing he was not a Pharisee.
6
From his portrait
he looks over the shoulder
of the businessman
who wanted to buy his burial.
Who does he think he is?
7
One Christmas
there was room for him at the table
but he declined
stopping instead on the porch
to chat about the garden.
8
When he gave Wellington’s poor
money and clothes given him
they were, for a while
rich beyond relief.
9
In church he placed in the plate
twenty dollars just given him
then said to his benefactor
two would do.
10
One cold night
not long before he left us
he rested in a bus shelter
and told a passing Samaritan
he was alright
and thank you for asking.
11
At his funeral it was said
how useful a bucket was
living on the street –
for washing at the public fountain
for carrying things in
for using as a hat
when God wept on you.
12
Blessed are Wellington’s homeless
for they shall inherit the earth
on Tinakori Hill.
sConversation at the Gates of Heaven, 30 June 2003
Let’s see now…Jones, isn’t it? Robert William, of no fixed abode, Wellington, born in Australia.
Yes.
Yes, yes, I have it now…. You’re the rich Bob Jones who lived it rough on Tinakori Hill and distributed property to the poor.
Yes. You’re not confusing me with another…?
No, no, we have you as having no earthly encumbrances of any note and no notes of any worth, but your constant gifts of donated items to the needy were noted.
[Embarrassed shuffle.]
Well, I must admit, they really fast-tracked you, didn’t they? I mean, you’ve only been gone a couple of minutes and here you are! Most do at least a little time in purgatory.
[Silence.]
Right! Right! Well, everything seems in order. Go on through and make yourself at home.
Thank you.
Hang on a minute! Who are you giving those sandals to? What are you doing with that bucket?
Situation Report, July 2003
• Mr Jones was a very private former public servant living on the streets of Wellington who scattered angst and guilt amo
ngst the middle classes with his presence and politeness.
• In the days since his death, I have had no reports of real or apparent resurrections or insurrections and no incidents of small scale or wholesale conversions to the carrying of buckets in the streets.
• He will probably be remembered as a living parable of antipathy to modern city life.
• Only the City Council has been moved – as a precaution, I am sure – to ban the homeless from assembling or gathering together in his name.
Today’s hui of gulls
Musings on landscape, ecology, colonisation, identity, and place
Landscape is…12
a museum of extracts
an anthology of fragments
an album of glimpses
the secret of where we are
skeins of connections
and recollections
inklings and murmurs
a map of our assumptions
desires and projections
My first big empty13
Cocooned in grey pumice dust, the landrover continued climbing to the head of the valley. At the top, the road hair-pinned before rappelling down a scarp into a much bigger basin. My 16 year-old eyes saucered at the sight – the only rural landscapes I’d ever seen were in Northland and Auckland. These were closed, close patterns of pasture punctuated with patches of dense bush. Bright and dark greens contrasted with oranges and yellows in road cuttings and hill scars raked by the rain’s fingernails. But now, ahead of me, the land was tussock-covered as far as I could see – and I could see a long, long way. No hills dressed in trees got in the way and there were no fences, no paddocks, no sheep, no houses, no cows. This fawn panorama with wiry skin was naked and limitless. It speared my soul.
In the far, far distance was a scrap of olive green stitched to the side of a low hill.
“That’s Pleasants Bush,” said Greg. “We’ll camp there tonight.”
Tongues of Ash Page 2
