‘Prayer’ by Tusiata Avia, Auckland Hospital, 9 March 2023

Saturday 17th June and it is one year since I had my bone marrow transplant at Auckland Hospital. If I hold the past year out to you, inside that year is another year, and inside that another, and then another, and then another. There is the year of miracle happiness, of finding joy in reading writing blogging. Of finding joy in looking out of my hospital room window to the harbour and sky and volcanic island. There is the joy of being cared for by extraordinary nurses and doctors over five weeks on Motutapu Ward.

Each day was one small step up a very steep and difficult mountain, but no matter how steep and how difficult, and how far away the peak seemed, there was always time to savour beauty, the view, the cleansing air. There was always one small step.

Ah. Inside the year of mountain climbing is the year of books, even in hospital where I had little towers of children’s picture books and junior novels to delight in, to consume in the tiniest of bites. I say books have the power to nourish, to keep you grounded, to fill you with awe comfort delight. It was so special to have two children’s books out in 2022, under the careful guidance of Catherine O’Loughlin and her team at Penguin Random House.

Inside the year of books is the year of support, from family friends and people I have never met in person. The year of kind emails you sent and send, the understanding when I don’t answer the phone or emails or say yes to all the wonderful things I normally say yes to. Even though I have made extraordinary progress on my mountain climb, I still haven’t reached the top. I am running on half a cup of energy a day, sometimes less, but I am also fuelled with awe and wonder and aroha.

And you help. You have all helped enormously.

Some days I feel sad that I am not out zooming and zipping doing school visits and author visits and poetry readings and book tours. Or hanging in the shadows at poetry events to feed off that goosebump zing of live poetry. I feel sad that I haven’t yet managed to do monthly poem challenges on Poetry Box as it is a big thing emailing every child that sends me a poem. I feel sad about this.

But to have both blogs up and running is a lifeline. To post almost daily reviews of children’s books on Poetry Box is sustenance. When you are zapped, a picture book is the perfect vitamin, and then writing on the uplift of reading an extra vitamin dose.

To post audio readings by poets with new books on Poetry Shelf is like staging live events in a cafe for me – so invigorating. I reach for my notebook and scrawl another poem. AND what joy to post new poems from you along with my slow-coach book reviews – equally satisfying.

Over the coming months my blogs will carry on as they are now – I will barely make a dent in the books waiting for me to review, I will say no to almost everything, I may not answer emails promptly, and the Poetry Shelf noticeboard will rarely have a presence. But slowly and surely I will keep the new series going that I have started. Hoping to assemble the next place on my poem road trip! Plus! I am going to do a few clusters of poems by children on Poetry Box with the help of a kind librarian poet.

To celebrate my year I have purchased a copy of WHAKAWHETAI: Gratitude – A Daily Bilingual Journal by Hira Nathan (Allen & Unwin, new edition 2023).

Recently I was at Auckland Hospital for my regular checkup and I stalled by Tusiata Avia’s magnificent awe-rich body-hugging poem, ‘Prayer’. I realised in my prolonged contemplation, what gratitude I felt for Tusiata’s words, and within that gratitude for your words, for friends and family, for our magnificent writing and reading communities, for supportive booksellers, for the exceptional hospital care by Richard, Tom, Sarah, Rosie, Hannah and the nurses, people who were and are consistently patient and kind and attentive, no matter how tired or overworked they are. No matter how tired or sizzled my brain is!

Today I celebrate one miracle year. I thank my anonymous young donor and I thank you. I offer special thanks to my dear friend Tusiata, who has given kind permission to post ‘Prayer’. Breathe this poem in and savour the day slowly. It is precious.

Prayer

I pray to you Shoulder blades
my twelve-year-old daughters’ shining like wings
like frigate birds that can fly out past the sea where my father lives
and back in again.

I pray to you Water,
you tell me which way to go
even though it is so often through the howling.

I pray to you Static –
no, that is the sea.

I pray to you Headache,
you are always here, like a blessing from a heavy-handed priest.

I pray to you Seizure,
you shut my eyes and open them again.

I pray to you Mirror,
I know you are the evil one.

I pray to you Aunties who are cruel.
You are better than university and therapy
you teach me to write poetry
how to hurt and hurt and forgive,
(eventually to forgive,
one day to forgive,
right before death to forgive).

I pray to you Aunties who are kind.
All of you live in the sky now,
you are better than letters and telephones.
I pray to you Belt,
yours are marks of Easter.

I pray to you Great Rock in my throat,
every now and then I am better than I feel I am now.

I pray to you Easter Sunday.
Nothing is resurrecting but the water from my eyes
it will die and rise up again
the rock is rolled away and no one appears
no shining man with blonde hair and blue eyes.

I pray to you Covid
I will keep my mask on, and the loved ones around me.

I pray to you Child
for forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness.
I will probably wreck you as badly as I have been wrecked
leave the ship of your childhood, with you
handcuffed to the rigging,
me peering in at you through the portholes
both of us weeping for different reasons.

I pray to you Air
you are where all the things that look like you live
all the things I cannot see.

I pray to you Reader,
I pray to you.

Tusiata Avia
from The Savage Coloniser Book, Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2020