Insect in Amber

My father had a piece of kauri gum with
an insect entombed within its amber glow.
A slender fly, buckled in futile agony
as the resin gradually engulfed it and set
fast. He kept it on his desk, a talisman
from a Wekaweka boyhood and an oddity
no doubt. Hundreds of years may well have
passed since this incidental tragedy within
the cloistered Northland bush, yet thin, black
lines of the body are preserved within the
jewelled translucence that caused its death.

©Owen Marshall View from the South  Penguin Random House 2018

 
Owen Marshall, novelist, short story writer, poet and anthologist, has published over thirty books. Awards include the Deutz Medal for fiction, the New Zealand Literary Fund Scholarship in Letters, fellowships at Otago and Canterbury universities and the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship in France. He is an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature, a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and has received the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Canterbury.

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