In the early mornings

In the early mornings we crossed each other’s paths lightly.
When I looked through the banister, down to where
you sat, loose papers on your knee, I didn’t ask
what you were reading. The moment was as tranquil
and full of possibility as morning meditation. I was enfolded in its stillness.

Sunlight touched the bushes that screen the windows.
I watched it splash off wooden sills and the air in the kitchen
brighten, welcoming you up. You came, carrying a sheaf of poems.
Your conversation was a set of quiet questions so gentle
that the silence seemed to stay unbroken.

We followed where they led, those still, exquisite,
end-of-summer days. We savoured them
as if we knew they were the final carefree hours
the two of you, the four of us, had left. We took them as they say
you should take time – freely, without trembling.

Diana Bridge

Wellington poet Diana Bridge’s eighth collection of poems, Deep Colour, came out from Otago University Press in 2023. A collection of her ‘China-based’ poems’ was included in Encountering China, an anthology of personal experiences of China also published last year to mark the 50^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and New Zealand.  

‘In the early mornings‘ remembers one of our closest Australian friends. Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, said of Allan Gyngell: He is the definitive historian of Australian foreign policy. He is the finest writer about Australian foreign policy … And possibly also the smallest ego in Australian foreign policy.” Ten weeks before he died, Allan was sitting in our living room reading the final draft of Deep Colour.