My father is “having fun”
cleaning the floor
he uses the plugged in sink as a bucket
wears rags on his feet
and shimmies to a cleaning beat
he asks me to read the label
on the bottle for him
he wants our floor to shine
and laughs when (surprise)
it does
this is how I will remember him
moonwalking across our kitchen floor
rags under his feet
“that’s how my mother taught me”
he says
“but I never take any note
it takes me forty years to do what she say”
We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.
I have come to the end of doubt
And to the beginning of the knowledge of self;
I have described a circle round the earth
And reach my starting place,
And I am ready for that which awaits me there.
When I am very earnestly digging
I lift my head sometimes, and look at the mountains,
And muse upon them, muscles relaxing.
I think how freely the wild grasses flower there,
How grandly the storm-shaped trees are massed in their gorges,
And the rain-worn rocks strewn in magnificent heaps.
Pioneer plants on those uplands find their own footing,
No vigorous growth, there, is an evil weed;
All weathers are salutary.
It is only a little while since this hillside
Lay untrammelled likewise,
Unceasingly swept by transmarine winds.
In a very little while, it may be,
When our impulsive limbs and our superior skulls
Have to the soil restored several ounces of fertiliser,
The Mother of all will take charge again,
And soon wipe away with her elements
Our small fond human enclosures.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.
We were not so far apart you and I
When the thunder broke from the blackened sky
We were not so far apart
And when the echo rolled away
Deep down in the slanting day
We dreamed. Or when the lightning struck
Behind the drawn blind
Not I alone rushed heaven-wards
In the wake it left behind
No, we were not so far apart, we
When the waters rushed with mad glee
Down the garden path
Mine was not the only dream
Washed beyond the pantry window
Like some desire in a far off flooded stream
We present this work in honor of the 125th anniversary of the poet’s death.
In a forest, far away,
One small creeklet, day by day,
Murmurs only this sad lay:
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’
One old box-tree bends his head,
One broad wattle shades her bed,
One lone magpie mourns the dead:
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’
Echoes come on every breeze,
Sighing through the ancient trees,
Whisp’ring in their melodies:
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’
Mellow sunbeams, morn and eve,
Quick to come and slow to leave,
Kiss the quilt where daisies weave
Rich designs o’er Lilian.
When the dying blossoms cling
To the skirts of parting Spring,
Wattle-boughs and branches fling
Showers of gold o’er Lilian.
When the Summer moon mounts high,
Queen of all the speckless sky,
Shafts of silver softly lie
O’er the grave of Lilian.
Mystic midnight voices melt
Through each leafy bower and belt,
Round the spot where friends have knelt—
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’
Far away from town and tower,
Sleeping in a leafy bower,
Withered lies the forest flower—
‘Peace be with thee, Lilian.’
There, where passions ne’er intrude,
There, where Nature has imbued
With her sweets the solitude,
Rests the form of Lilian.
Dear old forest o’er the sea,
Home of Nature’s euphony,
Pour thy requiem psalmody
O’er the grave of Lilian.
Guard that daisy-quilted sod:
Thou hast there no common clod;
Keep her ashes safe; for God
Makes but few like Lilian.
Sceptics ask me: ‘Is that clay
In the forest far away
Part of her?’—I only say:
‘Flow’rets breathe out Lilian;
‘From her grave their sweets mount high—
Love and beauty never die—
Sun and stars, earth, sea and sky
All partake of Lilian.
We present this work in honor of Waitangi Day.
These unshaped islands, on the sawyer’s bench,
Wait for the chisel of the mind,
Green canyons to the south, immense and passive,
Penetrated rarely, seeded only
By the deer-culler’s shot, or else in the north
Tribes of the shark and the octopus,
Mangroves, black hair on a boxer’s hand.
The founding fathers with their guns and bibles,
Botanist, whaler, added bones and names
To the land, to us a bridle
As if the id were a horse: the swampy towns
Like dreamers that struggle to wake,
Longing for the poets’ truth
And the lover’s pride. Something new and old
Explores its own pain, hearing
The rain’s choir on curtains of grey moss
Or fingers of the Tasman pressing
On breasts of hardening sand, as actors
Find their own solitude in mirrors,
As one who has buried his dead,
Able at last to give with an open hand.
We present this work in honor of the 15th anniversary of the poet’s death.
No one comes
by way of the doughy track
through straggly tea tree bush
and gorse, past the hidden spring
and bitter cress.
Under the chill moon’s light
no one cares to look upon
the drunken fence-posts
and the gate white with moss.
No one except the wind
saw the old place
maker her final curtsy
to the sky and earth:
and in no protesting sense
did iron and barbed wire
ease to the rust’s invasion
nor twang more tautly
to the wind’s slap and scream.
On the cream lorry
or morning paper van
no one comes,
for no one will ever leave
the golden city on the fussy train;
and there will be no more waiting
on the hill beside the quiet tree
where the old place falters
because no one comes anymore
no one.
We present this work in honor of the 100th anniversary of the poet’s death.
And again the flowers are come,
And the light shakes,
And no tiny voice is dumb,
And a bud breaks
On the humble bush and the proud restless tree.
Come with me!
Look, this little flower is pink,
And this one white.
Here’s a pearl cup for your drink,
Here’s for your delight
A yellow one, sweet with honey.
Here’s fairy money
Silver bright
Scattered over the grass
As we pass.
Here’s moss. How the smell of it lingers
On my cold fingers!
You shall have no moss. Here’s a frail
Hyacinth, deathly pale.
Not for you, not for you!
And the place where they grew
You must promise me not to discover,
My sorrowful lover!
Shall we never be happy again?
Never again play?
In vain—in vain!
Come away!
I came to your town, my love,
And you were away, away!
I said “She is with the Queen’s maidens:
They tarry long at their play.
They are stringing her words like pearls
To throw to the dukes and earls.”
But O, the pity!
I had but a morn of windy red
To come to the town where you were bred,
And you were away, away!
I came to your town, my love,
And you were away, away!
I said, “She is with the mountain elves
And misty and fair as they.
They are spinning a diamond net
To cover her curls of jet.”
But O, the pity!
I had but a noon of searing heat
To come to your town, my love, my sweet,
And you were away, away!
I came to your town, my love,
And you were away, away!
I said, “She is with the pale white saints,
And they tarry long to pray.
They give her a white lily-crown,
And I fear she will never come down.”
But O, the pity!
I had but an even grey and wan
To come to your town and plead as man,
And you were away, away!
We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.
“Her dying look was all for you.
It touched you to the last,” they said.
Are you not proud to think of that,
Though she is dead?
O death alive, is that peak proud Because
it was the last in gold?
It only knows the sky is blind,
And it is cold.
Poets Corner 