Stranded in the capital

Apologies to my fellow Tuesday poets and readers of Tuesday Poem, but I've missed two Tuesday postings because we came to Wellington for a school holiday visit and have been stranded by bleak weather from returning home.

I'm sorry I didn't know about the Helen Lowe get together in Wellington last night.

On a more positive note, I've just finished reading our own dear Mary McCallum's debut novel, The Blue, and I highly recommend it to one and all. A wonderful, engrossing, engaging read! Well done, Mary!

Tuesday Poem: "Naked and Blameless"

Stepping through a threshold

into a harsher light

illuminating pain                                     held onto tight

inside hands

made old with nurture and youthful

from grasping change                            held onto until

the palms bleed crimson with love,

love betrayed, love altered,

love bought, love sold

and love

flung green and hopeful on stony barren ground.

She goes forward,

a satyr dancing along the wild goat ruts

to the sparkle of the Aegean's music,

she goes forward,

joy singing its susurrating ocean

in her ears, deep in her heart

a whispering liberation snared by ghosts

until she feels her wings pinned

by the stones of her loins, jewels

weighed heavy with love and hope.

She goes forward,

cloaked in the wonder

of the person she has discovered within

her heartache

but where her bared feet press fresh and precious

against the stones

the hard green thorns outstretch

to snag a strand

of her hard-won mantle,

she goes forward,

little realising that her garment

is unravelling

until she stands on a promontory

gazing into the future where

the wind

whispers of her nakedness.

I wrote this poem some years ago for a friend who did not envision finding herself in her late thirties divorced, poorer and the principal caregiver of her two children who were still at primary school. But I suppose no-one would ever enter into marriage or any kind of committed relationship if they could foresee that it would end badly. To her credit, she picked herself up from the wreckage and began to refashion a new and different future for herself and her children.

The poet wishes to acknowledge Valley Micropress in whose pages this poem first appeared.

Tuesday Poem: "Playing with Thomas in Hagley Park"

We are immigrants in our own country,

lifestyle refugees

frolicking in this crisp, alpine weather.

Although you’re dressed like a miniature Inuit,

no amount of padding

can hide your delight

at play in the fields of the CCC.

Thomas, you connect me to the moment,

to the real,

with your joy so palpable

that it surrounds us like an aura.

Through your eyes I discover the world anew:

how the oak bark feels with its pattern

of vertical runnels, God’s reticulation;

how leaf mounds half-dried by a pale sun

unglue and fly

when prompted by tiny basketball shoes;

how daffodils spring like magic

from the thawed turf

to be sniffed in mimicry of the kitten

in your boardbook.

As twilight approaches,

I scoop you up in mid-adventure.

You protest loudly as I wheel you slowly away from

this place of life and breath and freedom

to merge into the slipstream of choking commuters.

When you live in a city that has been bent and broken and battered and bruised by a series of earthquakes, I guess it is inevitable that nostalgia creeps in and we remember wistfully how our city was in a kinder, gentler time. My wife and I moved down to Christchurch from Wellington in July 2000 when our oldest son, Thomas, was 15 months old. We were able to fulfill two dreams we could not afford in Wellington: to buy an affordable house with some land and to live near the sea. As it says in the poem, I considered us "lifestyle refugees", but that seemed a positive thing. Now, sadly, many people are fleeing Christchurch and that doesn't seem so positive. I truly hope that Christchurch can arise as a stronger, more cohesive, more socially equitable and, if possible, more beautiful city.

Tuesday Poem: "Don't Turn Around"

(for Nelson Mandela and my wife, Christine)

“Don’t turn around,”

they said,

“or you’ll miss it.”

And now I go,

always facing forward,

thanks to you.

Sometimes heaven opens a portal

when you’re rolling low

towards darkness

and you were its angel,

bearing glad tidings.

And now

I’m home

when my children wake me up;

I’m home

to collect my two sons from their

different educational institutions of excellence;

I’m home

to prepare the evening meal

for my wife

and no stone-age sniggers

can make me feel

emasculated,

since they have no concept

of emancipation.