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.

POET'S NOTE: The recent snowfalls in Canterbury and the impending possibility of another soon made me think about when we first moved down to Christchurch from Wellington and how we had to get used to a very different climate. Also, from time to time, I shamelessly indulge in a bit of parental nostalgia because my oldest son, Thomas, was only 15 months old when we moved to Christchurch and now he is thirteen and embarking on that journey towards independence, the unravelling which is inevitable in all parent-child relationships.


ADDITIONAL NOTE: I've only just realised that I have posted this poem before and I don't like to repeat myself, but it was back in July 2011 and, I guess like songs on the radio, the odd repeat play never hurt anyone. And I'm particularly fond of this poem.