Deep South :: The English Department Ezine, Otago University

Autumn Equinox

Watch the fire grow the fire
see how daylight passes
a cold fire’s no fire at all
     mainly ashes

Silent grasses line the hill
quiet as forever
sheep crowd the twisted wires
     drifting over

The full moon last night was high
higher than my dreaming
but a cold moon’s no moon at all
     only seeming

Unusually, the air is still
the weathervane sits idle
The first breath of wind swings in:
     death by arrival.

I Asked The Fish,

where were you the night the spray
covered the trees and the gulls flew away?

We were over the reefs
flying together, strung out like heartbeats

in league with each other.
Red as the sunrise we chivvied the winds

into tidal waves exchanged below
for white horses in embryo

Bigfoot in Love

Past red willows
past the river
I will follow
you my lover
track your bootprints
through the bracken
squishy leaves and
sharp manuka
thinking thoughts of
future rapture
skidding in the
drippy forest

Where are you, girl?
You’re gone?

She’s gone!
She’s gone to ground
in bloody trees!

Bugger.

So I backtrack
down the river
far from supple-
jack and lawyer
cheated yet a-
gain of rapture
back to spini-
fex forever
sandy beaches
oystercatchers
clockwork tides and
hopes of order.

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