BONDSMAN

My wife keeps giving me books -
On gardening -
A constant, silent directive to get out -
To enjoy -
The pleasures of thrusting tools into all too solid earth,
To revel in the lush growth
That springs from invasive labour.
So I, unwilling apostate, leave my books,
My pens, my glowing screen,
To hoe, to dig, to fork
Unforgiving ground, breaking clods,
Clay heavy,
Cloying to blade and tine
Until, reluctant, it falls - leaden,
Unformed,
Into wife measured squares of ground.
And I, sweating curses, labour on,
Through sun hot days
To hack and chop, chip and heave
The heavy unrequiting cledge
Into warm damp crags
To welcome clot sown hopeful seeds.

back to top

DRIVING BY THE ENSILAGE

Driving north in Winter I always know
where I am by the smell of ensilage.
Matamata's sour,
like old milk, biting through the window.
a few ks on Puketonga becomes
the soft warmth of cows' breath
slopped with green cud
and milk still frothing in the tank.
Over the hill,
swooping into Maramarua,
silage becomes a cloy of molasses
thick, sweet and warm with summer's grass.
Later still it smells of apples
fermenting under orchard trees.
At Takanini ensilage sweetness merges
into the stale sweat of horses
and old leather
to fade into the Aucklnad smoke of city exhausts
and the dust of fading dreams.

back to top

AIRPORT THOUGHTS

Around the room the travellers sit
surrounded in the tearful bonhomie
of assembled friends
their faces creased
in smiles of sympathetic loss.
These are the departing
waiting for the rainbow of promise
to hand from the runway mist
to lift Charon's coins from their eyes
and lead them
through the shrieking children,
swinging noisily along the stairs,
past Cerberus' guards -
towards the promised dreams.
In the hallways other travellers
carry coffee cups in earnest concentration
or stroke their hair
in nervous anticipation of departures.
While others,
waiting reunion and the knowledge
of renewal,
greet passers-by with
half aware familiarity of pilgrims
and the
"Don't I know you" hesitant smile
of welcome
echoed in the Maori chant

for arrivals
ushered forward
in the toothless grins
of white gloved Pentecostal guides
offering the higher plane
to be discovered in some other sun.

back to top

DRIFTWOOD

Driftwood and
splintering waves
salt spume smoking
tear at birds
squalling over shoaling fish
distant in the red-gold light of dawn.
The morning wind tears sand
dawn blackcold harsh
against my face
clearing the mind
an empty shell
found under drifting dunes.

back to top

FISHING THE WAITEMATA

The wake, a rumbling bridal train
of lace frothing to the distant shore,
we speed to points, fixed by experience-
Waiheke, Tryphena's mouth - red bouy - green bouyo
until, anchored,
we cast lines,
lures for the unsuspecting.
As gulls circle, swoop, cawing appreciation
of the time
and then settle at the table,
legs secure under the green tablecloth,
to gulp and swallow
scraps thrown from the boat.
Lines tighten, flicking rod-tips in agitation
at engagements to be reeled in,
broken off and, unhooked, measured and
found wanting, rejected, thrown back
to swim, confused, dodging critical beaks,
away teased by the chop of passing guests.

back to top