Small Bodies of Water

by Nina Mingya Powles

  I attended a poetry workshop where one of the participants asked: ‘How do we write about nature without writing an elegy?’ I am still trying to work out the answer. I never really intended to write about ecological loss, but I also don’t know how to avoid writing about it. I have to begin again, this time with the words of the poet Franny Choi, from her poem titled ‘How to Let Go of the World’:

  in lieu of all I can’t do or undo; I hold.

  The faces of the trees in my hands.

  Katherine Mansfield’s short story ‘At the Bay’, written in 1922, a year before the writer died from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-four, contains what I am sure is a description of a kōwhai tree, though in the text Mansfield names it as a mānuka. But mānuka flowers are neither yellow nor in ‘the shape of a bell’. They are white and candy-pink, with rounded petals and pink stamens. Had she mixed up the names? She was living in Europe at the time and hadn’t been back to Aotearoa for more than a decade. In the story, set in Wellington, one of the characters gazes up through the leaves while flowers fall around her:

  [. . .] if you held one of those flowers on the palm of your hand and looked at it closely, it was an exquisite small thing. Each pale yellow petal shone as if it was the careful work of a loving hand. The tiny tongue in the centre gave it the shape of a bell. And when you turned it over the outside was a deep bronze colour. But as soon as they flowered, they fell and were scattered [. . .] Why, then, flower at all?

  One unusually warm day in October, the sun touches the back of my neck as I sit on a park bench pulling my socks and shoes on after swimming at the pond. I take out my Thermos, an apple and a book. I’m rereading Turning by Jessica J. Lee, her memoir about swimming year-round in the lakes of Berlin. I open the book and out falls a pressed kōwhai flower from between pages 230 and 231. I don’t remember placing the flower inside the book, but I think it must have come from the tree in full bloom in Bounds Green, since my copy of this book has never left London. It’s like I’m holding a memory or a secret message in my palm, one I myself had left behind and forgotten. I wonder if Anna Jackson felt something similar when she opened Mansfield’s notebook in the library. The flower is still yellow, but faded to pale gold just like the colour of the botanical drawing of Sophora tetraptera from 1791. Holding it up to the light, I can see the delicate veins that run the length of each petal.

  Where does spring begin? Where does it end? On the 13th of February I walk around the corner to see if the kōwhai shows any sign of flowering. I notice for the first time that whoever lives here must be a careful gardener: a tender fig tree has been wrapped in gauze to keep it safe from frost. I wonder if they’ve seen me staring at their tree. I wonder if they were the one to plant it, or whether they inherited it, and if so from whom? The kōwhai’s dark evergreen leaves stand out against the bare branches of planes and oaks. I can see bunches of small, pointed buds starting to turn from green to gold.

  My markers of home are rooted in plants and weather. Wind that tastes of salt, the tūī’s bright warbling call, the crunch of shells underfoot, a swaying kōwhai tree. As time passes, these pieces of home begin to feel unstable, shifting further away. Long after I’ve moved away from Wellington, after my parents moved out of our house by the sea, after the garden has gone wild, a kōwhai tree grows in a garden in London: some small proof that although my pieces of home are scattered, I will always find my way to them.

  A list of yellow objects: huáng (yellow, also obscene, and also the official colour of the Chinese Emperor’s court), a racist slur, ripe mangoes at the fruit stall by the train station in summer, egg noodles fried till crispy, winter jasmine, a river that runs from the mountains in western China out to the Bohai Sea, the belly feathers of ring-necked parakeets, dried chrysanthemum buds to be steeped in tea, and the faint wing markings of the kōwhai moth – Uresiphita maorialis – whose larvae feed on the tree it’s named after.

  Tidying shelves in the library where I work, I run my finger along the dusty spines of poetry books. A pattern of yellow shapes catches my eye. A small hardback volume, its title embossed on the spine: Kowhai Gold: An Anthology of Contemporary New Zealand Verse, edited by Quentin Pope and published in 1930. I stand between the dimly lit stacks holding the book in my hands. Its faded dust jacket is patterned with slender kōwhai blooms all curved in the same direction. There’s a fullness to their shapes, as if depicted at their ripest, about to fall. I scan the contents and to my surprise more than half of the poets included in the book are women. Some names I know: Katherine Mansfield, Robin Hyde, Blanche Baughan. Others I’ve never heard of, including a poet named Dora Wilcox, whose poem serves as the book’s epigraph:

  And as your Summer slips away in Tears

  Spring wakes our Lovely Lady of the Bush

  The Kowhai; and she hastes to wrap herself

  All in a mantle wrought of living gold.

  I try to turn the page and find that they’re still folded shut, uncut. This ninety-year-old library book has been leafed through but it has never been closely read. I search online ‘how to cut pages of old unread books’ and learn that the uncut folds are called gatherings, a word I know will stay with me. A gathering: a collection, a meeting, and also ‘a group of leaves taken together, one inside another, in binding a book’ according to the dictionary. The word has a feeling of continuous movement inside it – gather objects and memories into your arms, gather pages together with a needle and thread. I find a scalpel in the book repairs box and slice slowly along the fold, trying to be as neat as possible. The pages fall open.

  I used to know what spring meant; I used to be able to tell where it began, where it ended. When the borders of spring started to shift, my eyes began to play tricks on me, showing me glimpses of yellow in places where it should not be, not yet. I keep seeing yellow flowers all over the city, in brief flashes. On the bus home from work, speeding through Camden, I catch sight of what could be a kōwhai blooming over the balcony of a flat in a concrete block – bright gold, then gone. February is not yet over but the tall kōwhai down the road is already in bloom, two plump clusters of bell-flowers shining at the top. The rest of its buds, which last week were sealed like chrysalises, are opening. I notice for the first time that the character for spring one of the first characters I ever learned, contains a sun In another hemisphere, summer slips away.

  Plane trees line the River Thames along the promenade where I walk during my lunch hour. In autumn I was asked to write about a memory for a project about the trees along the South Bank. I was assigned a tree: a London plane overhanging the river. But when I went to look at it, I found it hard to see the tree that was right in front of me; instead I saw the rows of plane trees along the streets of Shanghai, planted by French colonisers in the early twentieth century to make the streets resemble Paris. In spring, feathery pollen floated down in the humid air. Did the same thing happen when I saw the kōwhai in London? When I looked at it, could I really see it, or was I instead seeing all the kōwhai trees of my childhood? They placed my memory next to the tree, typed on a piece of laminated card. My memory stayed near the tree all day and all night for six weeks. One afternoon I sat on a bench by the river, in view of the plane tree, while tourists strolled along the walkway. Three girls passed by, each with a pink balloon tied to their wrists. In a burst of wind one of the balloons got free, soared up through the branches of the tree, over the pier, into the river’s current. The girls clung to the railings and watched it being carried away.

  In February, pink buds have come early to the plum and cherry trees all over London. Flicking through the March issue of the The Garden while waiting for the dentist, I stare wide-eyed at a zoomed-in picture of kōwhai flowers taking up most of the page. This semi-evergreen shrub Sophora microphylla, ‘Sun King’, the columnist says, is plenty hardy enough for English winters – and there’s even a smaller variety, Sophora molloyi, ‘Dragon’s Gold’, that can be grown in a pot. There’s no mention of its Māori name, which to me i
s its true name. That night I search the Royal Horticultural Society’s plant database for nearby stockists of ‘Dragon’s Gold’ – a plant nursery in Hampshire sells young shrubs for sixteen pounds each. I’m nervous, as if I’ve just decided to adopt some kind of needy pet. I’m worried I’m not ready. Once, I bought a potted kumquat tree and it died seven days later. Last year my dahlias got knocked off my windowsill by the wind and fell two storeys, their heads snapped clean off at the stems.

  I begin again with the chill of the air-conditioned cinema, where I cried while watching Frozen 2 during the scene where the forest spirits are able to forgive humankind for all the damage they’ve done to the natural world. I begin again with the glowing kōwhai, since the tree is where I begin and where I end. I hold parts of the tree in my hands.

  How do you grow a kōwhai tree? First, gently remove the sapling from its box. Marvel at its smallness. Peel back the fine netting wrapped around its branches. Hold your face close to the leaves: detect scents of mint and lemon. Carry it upstairs in your arms. Feed it, soak its roots to prepare for transplanting. Type into Google ‘how to prevent root shock’. Read pages and pages of tips and follow the online advice: ‘if you let them get a little root-bound, they seem to flower better the next year’. On your balcony garden, in the rain, tip compost into a larger pot and make a well for the roots to fit into. Begin the tender work of transplanting. Afterwards, check anxiously for symptoms of shock. Position the tree by your front door, next to the climbing jasmine, in partial sunlight. Slowly, day by day, observe its branches starting to thicken, its stem growing more sure of itself. Wait for signs of flowering.

  The Language of Waves

  Tides

  When I got my first period, aged eleven, I had just started in the seventh grade at an American school in Shanghai. It was swimming that I was most afraid of. Not of attracting sharks in shallow waters like boys stupidly said we might, as if they could somehow scare us more than our own bodies already had. I had visions of blood trailing around the swimming pool, not knowing it was coming from me. I had no concept yet of what my body could contain; I thought I might stain everything red in my wake. In English class we watched The Diary of Anne Frank, the black-and-white film version. In one scene, there was a small patch of dark blood seeping into the middle of Anne’s bedsheets. Some boys looked away.

  The sea rises and falls according to the pull of the sun and the moon. When the earth aligns with a new and full moon, daily tidal swells are at their largest. Tides affect the land, too. Body tides below the crust of the earth are caused by the same gravitational forces. Near tectonic plate boundaries, these movements may cause volcanic eruptions.

  Mene, moon; mensis, month; menarche, the first period. Much of the folklore and myth surrounding menstruation relates to the cycles of the moon. In Mandarin, one word for menstruation begins with the character for moon, which also means month: yuèjīng Across cultures, periods have been associated with magic and supernatural power, as well as danger and uncleanliness. Pliny the Elder famously wrote: ‘Hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightnings even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body while her courses are upon her.’

  Deepwater

  In a small village in Italy, I’m in a gelato shop, in pain and trying to stay upright, when a man I don’t know very well makes a racist joke. He’s not speaking directly to me but to the group, of which I’m a part. The pain, which had become cool and soft while I sat still licking my ice cream, surges invisibly. There’s a wave somewhere deep inside my body.

  I look him in the eye and then I have to look away, up at the white pergola covered in plastic vines and pink glistening azaleas. It’s difficult to work out what to say, partly because of the wave and partly because the man’s small children are present.

  It is easiest for me to talk about pain using the language of waves. Deepwater waves are composed of multiple waves of different lengths, formed in deep bodies of water where there are no nearby shorelines to provide resistance. The energy force that propels them is wind.

  The pain is the colour of raspberry sorbet, which is the colour of the inside of a person’s mouth.

  Shallow water

  The first time I felt this pain, I was sixteen. I lay on my bed, unable to move except to curl and uncurl my body at regular intervals. I couldn’t stop sweating, and the sweat was getting into my eyes. The lilac paint colour of my bedroom walls seemed to be melting off the ceiling and evaporating into faint pinkish clouds.

  It lasted no more than two hours, but inside that lilac-coloured mist, time was an unknown thing. The pain dissolved slowly, like lightning strikes getting further and further away. Eventually you can only see the tops of clouds lighting up in the distance, with no sound. Where does pain go when it dies?

  It seems counter-intuitive, but tidal waves and tsunami are scientifically categorised as shallow-water waves. These types of waves don’t need much depth to travel.

  Breaking

  I am filled with a hot, thick liquid that weighs me down at all times except when swimming. I float on my back and feel a rippling sensation beneath the skin at the base of my spine. I let the blue water hold me. The water cools and cradles me. The water seeps all the way in.

  When waves break they break in four distinct ways: by spilling, plunging, surging or collapsing. For three to four days each month, it feels like my body is composed only of these different types of breaking waves. Today I am a combination of plunging and collapsing.

  The crest of a collapsing wave does not completely break, but dissolves into white water.

  Refracting

  The curve of a bay is difficult to discern when you’re swimming alongside it, just as the shape of pain is difficult to describe while you’re still inside it, unable to see traces of light breaking through the surface.

  Some people will ask you for a number, but I find it easiest to represent pain with a colour and corresponding verb. Emerald green gnawing. Crimson pulling. Dark pink pushing.

  Refracted waves move in a curved shape where the water close to shore suddenly deepens. Like the thump in your stomach when you take one step further out and there’s a drop-off that you can’t see: the sand gives way.

  Capillary

  Capillary waves resemble ripples. They are caused by soft, slow winds blowing near the surface. If you say the word capillarity out loud, it sounds like it is composed of sea foam and the white caps of waves.

  When the pain slides away, when my appetite returns, I make something hot and soothing: steamed rice, a boiled egg, or instant noodles. I rip open the semi-transparent seasoning packet and tip its contents over the frothing noodles. I watch the specks of dried spring onion, salt and stock powder bubble up and expand on the surface. The steam clears my throat and nose. I warm my hands over the pot and cup steam clouds in my fingers until they disappear. Later, I hold the warm bowl against my stomach.

  Internal

  When tidal movements and strong winds cause layers of salt water to break apart and combine, the largest waves on earth begin to form beneath the surface.

  We first started to find a language for this pain when we were teenagers, when the shame we felt about our periods began to fall away and be replaced by something like anger. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were equipping ourselves with a vocabulary for rage. The words we used often related to fire or violence: My uterus is on fire. My ovaries are trying to kill me.

  Bleeding and pain were brushed over during lectures from the school nurse in Year 7 health class at my Christian all-girls’ school in Wellington. We were left with the burning question that hung in the backs of our minds every PE swimming lesson, every pool party: what do you do if you get your period in the pool?

  Mentions of periods and period pain are largely absent from the literature of swimming, and nature writing more generally, despite the fact that for many of us, bleeding and swimming are deeply entwined. A few writers have written frankly on the subject. In Wild, Cheryl S
trayed famously describes inserting her menstrual sponge on the Pacific Crest Trail. In the novel The Word for Woman Is Wilderness by Abi Andrews, the main character Erin often experiences period pain while on a journey across the Arctic. ‘My womb feels like it is full of acid and lined with tar,’ she says. Later, she empties the contents of her Mooncup out onto the ice sheet.

  When the hours are punctuated by pain fading and surfacing, my body feels stagnant, heavy. Swimming is often impossible; the walk to the pond is too much. But when I can manage it, floating is a blessing. In Sanatorium, a book about floating in water, Abi Palmer writes: ‘Floating opens up a world in which I can move with relative ease [. . .] where I can see, think and feel with a clarity I do not experience on land.’

  Seiche

  I am lucky. For the pain, I get mefenamic acid tablets from my GP for the standard prescription charge of £8.80. The little capsules are bright blue on one end, cream on the other. As far as I know, my pain has always been believed.

  In the poem ‘The Institute for Secret Pain’ by Kirstie Millar, a chorus of unnamed women begins to find words for their collective pain: ‘The pain is green and deep and brilliant.’ Another narrative poem, ‘The Curse’, is a tale of menarche. A young girl’s menstrual pain flares up during PE class, while swimming: ‘There were screams and a whistle and sunlight streaming onto my face through the windows above the swimming pool. / And then there was nothing at all.’