‘So Sang a Little Clod of Clay’
William Blake
When it hurts, but she doesn’t say;
when it dulls, but he still gives praise.
When she bites, but he refuses rage
and he walks free, yet she stays.
When they wait through blunt dismay
although they ache as the children play
this is tread and bootgrind
this is hope’s hard labour
this is the heart’s ripe savour
this is the sting of healing
this is the rope of time —
and love is dust
ignited
in fleet, golden murmuration.
©Emma Neale
New Coat
This late summer morning is learning how to breathe
while Reina embroiders on the lanai shaded by our rainbow umbrella
Pete and Willie of Villa Magic have taken five weeks to burn
scrape and sand off our villa’s century-old skin and replace it
In the kowhai a lone cicada’s love call sounds like the imperious
snapping of fingers ordering our villa to rise up
in its new coat of iceberg white
and plum trimmings: its radiance will wrap round Reina’s
fingers and needle
and the morning will breathe in admiration
© Albert Wendt April 2014
I, Melchior
To be honest, I didn’t know Baz or Casper
before we took the trip. We studied
in different cities and my focus was on the history of stars
while Casper predicted movement. Neither of us
know what Baz studied exactly, but it was good
having him around.
Many nights over the small flame of our fire
we guessed at why the dream chose us,
and most days I wondered if I was a fool
to leave my life’s work for a single light.
Traveling west we saw the far reaches
of an empire whose gold leafed crown
would wrap around the head of every
nation if it could. I didn’t mind the welcome
given to us by its governors and princes,
the cold limoncello and soft cheeses, the grapes
brought to our mouths by slender bangled wrists;
But there was something about that king—rouged
and fat, chewing a leg of meat, feeding us like we
were to be eaten next, asking exactly who it was
we were off to see—that reminded me not to be a man
given to appetite. I closed my eyes to the women
and remembered there was somewhere
I was supposed to be going.
The last days of travel were quiet, thirsty days,
full of dust and flies. Nights we slept close in the dark,
because Baz insisted we not light any fires. We argued
about whether we were on course and what we were
looking for in the first place until we found ourselves
under the star, at the door of a house.
It was nothing really. A poor place and the girl
who answered the door was about fourteen, with a naked baby
looking out at us from behind her skirts where he stood.
Casper shoved me and I almost spoke, but didn’t.
Baz knelt, and that decided it. I lowered myself to my knees
right in the doorway, and as I did I felt something
no book has ever been able to explain. Some strange peace,
the sound of beating wings filled the air and the child laughed.
We unloaded our treasures and as we did his mother’s
face was wet with tears. She didn’t look at the spices,
she wasn’t marveling at the cost. Her head was tilted,
her mouth slightly open as if dreams she’d had
were playing out before her. It was enough,
her silent grace, the child’s laugh–to answer at least
the only question worth asking. We left at dusk
into a different world than we had come from.
The first sleep in the desert brought us the same nightmare;
a slaughter of children and the rouged king’s laughter
heard above the moan of young mothers. We parted ways
in the dark, with a vow to never look for each other again
for fear of killing the King we’d found.
Did we find what we were looking for, or were we meant
to find something that would take all of history to unravel?
I think about Baz, face to the ground in that doorway,
when a star falls suddenly from the sky and wind blows out the last embers of fire.
©Amy Leigh Wicks
Town
In the small town with
the grey clouds like
quiet dogs
on the veranda with our
feet up watching ghosts
in the old corner garden
where the oleander dips deep
I am myself and not myself
again and again and again
until you find me through
the small water in my wrist
the channel where the darkest
fish run to the lake in my palm
It is raining.
You hold my arm there, on
the Formica-topped table
with more gravity than a
metal earth
softer than a soft sea.
I am yours driving down and
diving
homing around and around
and back again.
©Sugar Magnolia Wilson
Drycleaners: London and Paris
A little girl like a shepherdess receives
my knit top with a tomato stain
and returns the docket. Tuesday.
On Tuesday it’s hanging on a hanger
the spot shrunk but still visible.
I can’t complain to a shepherdess
who has lost one stain but carries its ghost
in her demeanour like a lost lamb.
I take it to another drycleaner.
In Paris the spot is onion soup.
Briskly it is frowned over: one week
to remove it, Madame. Not sooner.
It will take a special discovery of benzene
an accident like Tarte Tatin
and rows of girls in chemises
sweating over garments in poor ventilation.
No wonder we should sniff at improvements
in Paris and failure in London.
©Elizabeth Smither
NZ Poetry Shelf 