Kia ora

for my mother

 

I remember the brooch you always wore

I remember it most of all

tiny fragments, blue dust

glinting on your breast

my hand reaching to touch

 

I recall the call of the song sparrow

I recall it most vividly of all

the squeech-squeech-trill

moving through sunlight

stopping on our sill

 

I can see the maple in our yard

I can see it best of all

its smooth  grey skin

planted in thin slanting soil

a young towering thing

 

Or was it a pendant?

A warbler? A white oak?

My memories, round

and flawed, you

across oceans and continents

 

It’s autumn in Dunedin

sunrise, cool and misty

glowing

the brooch            the pendant

the sparrow          the warbler

the maple              the oak

 

Michelle Elvy

 

 

Michelle Elvy is a writer, editor and manuscript assessor. She grew up in the Chesapeake Bay region of the US and now makes her home in Dunedin. She edits at Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction and Best Small Fictions, and she chairs National Flash Fiction Day. Recent anthology projects include Bonsai: Best small stories from Aotearoa New Zealand (CUP 2018) and Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand (OUP 2020). Michelle’s poetry, fiction, travel writing, creative nonfiction and reviews have been widely published. Her book, the everrumble (Ad Hoc Fiction 2019), is a small novel in small forms. michelleelvy.com