the days for Frances 

January 2022 

oh Frances 
bright wings 
at the corner of the barrel vault 
against a blue Tuscan sky  

or that big purple octopus 
curving along the underside 
of the pontoon where you wait 
for the ferry that will bring you 
to Devonport 
a big purple octopus 
for the start of rehearsals 
wind and weather 
never looked better 

and then there were the summer lunches 
breezes on the deck 
cuisine straight from the garden 
crisp white wine 
cat monitoring dog 
then into the car 
or the swim at Onetangi 

island life 
its purple octopuses 
and banked tomato plants 
in cans 
clear white wine 
and zucchini fritters surrounded 
by golden flowers 

here 

bells pealing from a dark throat 
in the tītoki  

here 

sticky white flowers 
pelting the deck 

here

a fantail hopping about
in the yellow ginger 

I come down the steps 
counting to fifteen 
and we make a progress around the garden 
arm in arm 
feet cool in the damp grass 
of the oncoming evening 
here is Senhor Palm his thick trunk 
one of two shooting four metres 
into the sky chinks  
below him the heliconia 
almost in flower 
bright red bract about to unfold 
two more palms though one is ragged 
and may have to go 
pink banana flowers 
so beloved of birds
a leaf the length of my arm
torn into soft strips 
then the four beds of provender 
wilding coriander 
basil coming on in ordered rows  
beans out of control on their towers 
bull’s horn peppers curling from stalks 
that can barely hold them 
three tomatoes 
from Taranaki seed 
sweet green shishito peppers 
for pan-frying 
feathery thyme clinging to fingertips 
then the feijoas  
and the disreputable bird of paradise 
whose days are numbered 
but not the cannas 
waving their red flags 
in a bundle of green spears 
the tall ginger plant with ivory flowers 
yellow and orange on the inside 
the boxed fig tree branching out 
tiny fruits on its 
extremities 
and the soft new foliage of the tītoki 
where berries of red and black are forming 
and the tūī comes to dive  
for insects in the evening air  
we circle back across the grass 
to the steps and ascend 
listening
to water pattering below

Michele Leggott

Michele Leggott’s eleventh poetry collection, Face to the Sky, was published recently (Auckland University Press). Her selected poems, Mezzaluna, was co-published in 2020 by Wesleyan and Auckland University Presses. Earlier titles include Vanishing Points (2017) and Heartland (2014), both from Auckland University Press. She is working on a study of archival poetics, provisionally titled ‘Groundwork: The Art and Writing of Emily Cumming Harris’. Michele Leggott co-founded the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (nzepc) with fellow poet and librarian Brian Flaherty in 2001. She was the New Zealand Poet Laureate 2007–2009 and received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry in 2013. In 2017 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.