Tongues of Ash Read online

  as though waiting for

  the tennis to start

  a plane’s boarding call

  today’s speaker to come to the podium.

  On windless days

  gulls individually choose

  which way to face

  but always their disarray portrays

  notes fallen from a sheet of music

  iron filings in search of a magnet

  words waiting for a poem.

  Show time

  windows besieged

  by blizzards of blossom

  magnolias in mauve bows

  with green streamers

  every tree a fringe festival

  of rowdy flowers

  Fulgura frango4

  In the middle ages

  a monk would ring his abbey’s bell

  to exorcise evil fire from the clouds.

  He probably knew when rivers of fog

  shrouded his tower

  it was clouds just lying on the ground

  but a sky of towering anvil heads

  meant the blacksmith’s blazing sparks

  were not too far behind.

  Without modern media, he wouldn’t have known

  one hundred and three bell ringers

  died in a flash in thirty-three medieval years.

  Or, Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod

  would one day prevent him from dying

  as ashes to heaven’s fires.

  So, with sackcloth hitched

  he’d trudge the belfry’s steps (wishing it was fog)

  and chant the words writ on his bell

  fulgura frango, fulgura frango

  I break up the lightning, I break up the lightning

  and pray that it was true.

  Variations on an early turning

  Five days of rain, bitter gales

  mass desertion of leaves

  bedraggled blackbird, savage at

  the last apple’s heart

  pecking a cadenza for rain’s bolero.

  Days of unseasonal cold too

  snow on the hills, an early turning

  as my own winter starts

  with skirls of slurry and sleet

  from the pipes that plumb to my heart.

  In a boy’s body, after hard running

  I remember lying listening

  to ground-bouncing, pounding timpani

  unaware the heart’s sound

  will one day desert the body.

  And you my love

  try to mask your concern

  but your heart rides tandem with mine

  and taps a discordant descant

  for my drug-induced adagio.

  Today, for a heartbeat of time

  the day mutes rain’s tattoo

  unravels a sodden skein

  from the sullen blanket of sky

  lets through a quaver of white.

  Not enough blue sky to make

  a sailor a pair of pants

  your father would say

  before his proud heart surrendered

  to time’s savage pecking.

  Though long enough to display

  the latency all days have

  for light, warmth, death’s abstention

  for playing arpeggios of hope

  in a heart’s winter garden.

  Tongues of ash

  Army days in Waiouru, Wellington and its weather

  The Snow-Sayer

  Now and then

  and as an aside

  he would advise –

  in the next day, or so

  there will be snow.

  When asked how he did it

  he said he could read

  between the lines

  of a weather map

  the code for snow.

  To disbelievers he said

  that TV forecasters

  three hundred miles away

  can’t hear pianissimo in

  passages of snow.

  Or, when news came

  of his firstborn’s conception

  it snowed, so now

  he was fated to foretell

  the birth of snow.

  But at night, outside, alone

  he sipped the wind

  listened to the clouds

  ran his fingers over the sky

  for scent of snow.

  Rangipo grounding

  I looked around

  Ruapehu’s5 apron

  after the subaltern

  bellied the rover

  in a minefield of boulders.

  Waiting for the NCOs

  who’d seen it all before –

  a new lieutenant

  green as the desert was grey

  trying to impress us boys

  though he’d been told

  not to go that way.

  Behind, Ruapehu simmering

  Ngauruhoe smoking.

  In front, desolation –

  a few tussocks, wire weed

  desecrated earth.

  I didn’t know then

  about rain shadow

  desiccation by wind

  the habitats of lahar fields

  or the conditions necessary

  for things to grow.

  Muttering wry derision

  the NCOs

  with knowing grins

  levered, heaved, hauled it free.

  Those dry, wiry, salty men

  who supplied us with

  the necessary conditions.

  Navigation point on the Desert Road

  for Greg Hill

  The cutting’s orange side

  speaks millennia in tongues of ash6.

  Past it a mountain stream

  corrodes the road each rain.

  First, a short dipping straight

  with sentries of black beech.

  We’re halfway through

  Greg said in his quiet way

  pointing out the trees.

  During Vietnam, Uncle Sam

  licked Greg with orange rain.

  Later, his life was cut in two.

  He showed us how to get to

  further yet, helped us with the pain

  of that, made sure we all got home.

  Coming back from leave

  We watched you from Waiouru’s7 windows,

  Ruapehu, all those years ago

  though I never knew who was watching whom.

  Summer days that could glaze clay pots

  you would slip the Rangipo, shimmy in a haze

  an impresario of water-colour washes.

  I remember looking up, for no good reason

  on those runs up Totem and round Three Kings

  or when going home through Camp Road gate.

  And there you were, closer than before

  a rhinoceros with psoriasis

  flanks shedding metal skin.

  But was Waiouru really home? All those years

  we spent yearning for the next

  weekend away, long leave break, posting out.

  Winter, coming back from Wellington

  (from anywhere) you would appear

  white on grey canvas, so still – still there.

  The nearer we got, the heavier

  the sky’s press, the deeper the pit

  the closer the bars on the windows.

  The sinews of Ohau Bay

  One day, before the wind farm triffids grow

  I’ll go to Ohau Bay

  by way of Makara.

  Maybe I’ll climb Terawhiti Hill

  and watch Cook Strait8

  bruise the heel of Wellington.

  An old fellow lives in Wilton

  the paper says

  been going down to Ohau Bay

  three times a week

  for forty years.

  Perhaps he’ll tell me –

  It’s because the wind there

  makes macrocarpas

  kneel down and pray

  or he’ll say

  the la
nd’s bed here

  is so unmade

  or, Maui9 hooked the fish

  right at this point

  right here.

  Petone Beach

  book ends of hills a salmagundi of dogs

  oystercatchers inspecting discarded cares

  holding the beach together a universe of small holes

  There are people and dogs walking in front of him, the whir of journeys going on behind. A tour bus pulls up and sets down its voyagers. They look longingly out to sea before forming high and low tides. Using a different sextant, they record their present positions. Gulls accost them, demanding food. The birds’ reverse sales pitch fails. The bus is re-boarded and rejoins the current of journeys.

  in the mouth of Maui’s fish

  sits the morsel

  Matiu/Somes10

  A small circus of birds performs on the beach for him – Jonathon Livingstone clowns, oystercatchers on stilts, two terns on a high wire and the ringmaster, a gull in a tux. Across the harbour on the Miramar Peninsula an out-size satellite dish faces north, like a science fiction altar to the sun. He suspects its real job is to eavesdrop on the subversive circus. He claps loudly, hoping to cause tinnitus.

  what did you say?

  he can’t hear you yet

  Matiu/Somes

  He hears the sound of the waves being blown out to sea by a tender nor’ wester. The sea is half asleep, breathing gently, harbouring energy for the days when it will play its timpani. A raucous gang of gulls surrounds a woman and Downs Syndrome boy sitting on the parapet. Gleefully the boy choruses their racket but mixes up the sounds of screech and squawk with those of dog. The confused birds press mute, back off, look for other sport.

  in and out

  on his eyes’ tide

  floats Matiu/Somes

  The West Winds Gang is back

  Past masters of horizontal violence

  skulk about town, by Featherston, on Stout

  down Customhouse Quay. Bully boy racer

  blowhards, they belt you in the back, throw sand

  in your eyes, then hoon around night and day

  all taunt, jostle, swashbuckling hiss and spit

  drag racing in great gusts, trashing the streets.

  Near Brooklyn Heights and Tinakori Hill

  it’s hit and run for fun, breaking the limbs

  of young trees and old ladies before

  shrieking off to push and shove the ferries

  and flatten the harbour. Oh for a big

  High to arrest the lot, pack them off for

  a spell in Makara’s Wind Farm Prison.

  Wellington Southerly

  Those whose windows quiz Cook Strait spy it first

  a horizon smudge, a pencil line that

  becomes a wall for all to fear and curse.

  The sun, before so charming, smells a rat

  grabs a jacket, gloves, hat, turns off the lights.

  On the Valley’s river gravel runways,

  gulls face south in staunch platoons, feathers spiked

  shoulders hunched, ready for the stoush and fray.

  White top relays are first to open fire –

  harbingers of rain and ice, they charge the

  harbour’s mouth, smash at teeth and gums, expire.

  Then in Seatoun, Kelburn, and Khandallah

  on earth and house, railway line and road

  the weather bomb ignites its fuse, explodes.

  What we were doing on Wahine Day11

  Huge trees fell down in Christchurch.

  I listened all day to the air waves

  for news of the seas in Wellington.

  Marg sat on a train at Ngauranga

  waves breaking over the carriage.

  Marg and I cried when Doug said

  he jumped ship almost too late.

  At Eastbourne’s nearest pub

  Doug lined up a beer and whiskey –

  and was asked to pay. We went round

  the bays one day and found where

  his lifeboat beached (the pub had gone).

  Thirty years on he sailed again –

  this time by fast-ferry.

  The Bucket Man poems

  for Robert Jones, 1942 – 2003

  The Stations of the Bucket Man

  1

  One Monday, Mr Jones walked out

  of his Tinakori Hill campsite

  with his birth certificate

  bank statement and will

  knelt in the gutter

  at the intersection

  of Grant and Park Streets

  and died.

  2

  He was an urban Man Alone

  before he went bush in the city.

  His mother said his downfall

  was his (bleeding) sensitivity.

  3

  The artist who painted him

  with a halo and cross

  was asking us to reflect

  on what we would say

  if we met on the street.

  4

  He stopped daily

  at the Golden Arches

  buying coffee and a bite to eat

  in lieu of loaves and fishes.

  5

  The stockbroker’s assistant

  nearly threw him out

  of the counting-house

  seeing he was not a Pharisee.

  6

  From his portrait

  he looks over the shoulder

  of the businessman

  who wanted to buy his burial.

  Who does he think he is?

  7

  One Christmas

  there was room for him at the table

  but he declined

  stopping instead on the porch

  to chat about the garden.

  8

  When he gave Wellington’s poor

  money and clothes given him

  they were, for a while

  rich beyond relief.

  9

  In church he placed in the plate

  twenty dollars just given him

  then said to his benefactor

  two would do.

  10

  One cold night

  not long before he left us

  he rested in a bus shelter

  and told a passing Samaritan

  he was alright

  and thank you for asking.

  11

  At his funeral it was said

  how useful a bucket was

  living on the street –

  for washing at the public fountain

  for carrying things in

  for using as a hat

  when God wept on you.

  12

  Blessed are Wellington’s homeless

  for they shall inherit the earth

  on Tinakori Hill.

  sConversation at the Gates of Heaven, 30 June 2003

  Let’s see now…Jones, isn’t it? Robert William, of no fixed abode, Wellington, born in Australia.

  Yes.

  Yes, yes, I have it now…. You’re the rich Bob Jones who lived it rough on Tinakori Hill and distributed property to the poor.

  Yes. You’re not confusing me with another…?

  No, no, we have you as having no earthly encumbrances of any note and no notes of any worth, but your constant gifts of donated items to the needy were noted.

  [Embarrassed shuffle.]

  Well, I must admit, they really fast-tracked you, didn’t they? I mean, you’ve only been gone a couple of minutes and here you are! Most do at least a little time in purgatory.

  [Silence.]

  Right! Right! Well, everything seems in order. Go on through and make yourself at home.

  Thank you.

  Hang on a minute! Who are you giving those sandals to? What are you doing with that bucket?

  Situation Report, July 2003

  • Mr Jones was a very private former public servant living on the streets of Wellington who scattered angst and guilt amo
ngst the middle classes with his presence and politeness.

  • In the days since his death, I have had no reports of real or apparent resurrections or insurrections and no incidents of small scale or wholesale conversions to the carrying of buckets in the streets.

  • He will probably be remembered as a living parable of antipathy to modern city life.

  • Only the City Council has been moved – as a precaution, I am sure – to ban the homeless from assembling or gathering together in his name.

  Today’s hui of gulls

  Musings on landscape, ecology, colonisation, identity, and place

  Landscape is…12

  a museum of extracts

  an anthology of fragments

  an album of glimpses

  the secret of where we are

  skeins of connections

  and recollections

  inklings and murmurs

  a map of our assumptions

  desires and projections

  My first big empty13

  Cocooned in grey pumice dust, the landrover continued climbing to the head of the valley. At the top, the road hair-pinned before rappelling down a scarp into a much bigger basin. My 16 year-old eyes saucered at the sight – the only rural landscapes I’d ever seen were in Northland and Auckland. These were closed, close patterns of pasture punctuated with patches of dense bush. Bright and dark greens contrasted with oranges and yellows in road cuttings and hill scars raked by the rain’s fingernails. But now, ahead of me, the land was tussock-covered as far as I could see – and I could see a long, long way. No hills dressed in trees got in the way and there were no fences, no paddocks, no sheep, no houses, no cows. This fawn panorama with wiry skin was naked and limitless. It speared my soul.

  In the far, far distance was a scrap of olive green stitched to the side of a low hill.

  “That’s Pleasants Bush,” said Greg. “We’ll camp there tonight.”