On the First Night of Lockdown

 

Mottled clouds hanging over roadside paddocks

blistered with autumn

and the road still vanishing into the mountains

where I was looking

to see the new moon’s silver thread

out on the horizon

 

and thinking of you on your walkways

so far to the north of

these long golden hills strung out with weeds

and thistledown wired all the way

to your city above the troubled sea

where you’d be looking

 

for the same lop-sided smile

 

but the moon was in lockdown too

thick barcodes of rain

closing out the doors of the sky

and the road’s white arms flushed dark

with unknowing

 

Cliff Fell

 

Cliff Fell lives on the eastern edge of the Motueka river catchment, He has published three books of poems and recently completed a 3600 word prose poem celebrating Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s 101st birthday.