A Lullaby

Here is the world in which you sing.
Here is your sleepy cry.
Here is your sleepy father.
And here the sleepy sky.

Here is the sleepy mountain,
and here the sleepy sea.
Here is your sleepy mother.
Sleep safe with me.

Here is pohutukawa,
here is the magpie’s eye,
here is the wind in branches
going by.

Here is a heart to beat with yours,
here is your windy smile.
Here are these arms to hold you
for awhile.

Here is the world in which you sleep,
and here the sleepy sea.
Here is your sleepy mother.
Sleep safe with me.

Bill Manhire
The Victims of Lightning, Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2010

Over the coming months, the Monday Poem spot will include poetry that has stuck to me over time, poems that I’ve loved for all kinds of reasons. Poems that comfort or delight or challenge. Poems that strike the eye, ear or heart.

So many of Bill Manhire’s poems have taken up residency in the poetry room in my head, poems that make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, poems that deliver an exquisite interplay of music, surprise, wit, observation, invention. How hard it has been, choosing a single poem for this occasion. At first I sought permission to post ‘Hotel Emergencies’, a poem that has resonated deeply over the years, and that still pierces acutely. How heartbreaking, almost twenty years later, that it reflects a version of our current catastrophic world. You can listen to Bill read the poem here.

But today I have chosen ‘A Lullaby’, a tender poem I also return to, so moving, so comforting. It’s poetry gold, a poem that holds me in a warm embrace. I have had it open on the kitchen table, all week, poem as balm, praying against all odds the world will sleep safe, stay safe. Bill is our poet musician extraordinaire, the way he makes a poem sing, whether he is writing of dark or light, difficulty or love, Buddhist rain or garden gates. Today I need to take this one quiet moment, and let these lullaby lines soothe my aching heart.

Bill Manhire’s most recent books, all published by Te Herenga Waka University Press / Victoria Press, include Wow (2020), Some Things to Place in a Coffin (2017), Tell Me My Name (with Hannah Griffin and Norman Meehan, 2017) and The Stories of Bill Manhire (2015). He was New Zealand’s inaugural poet laureate, and founded and until recently directed the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. He has edited major anthologies, including, with Marion McLeod, the now classic Some Other Country: New Zealand’s Best Short Stories (1984).