Poems
A working kitchen, Villefranche
Dishes were being washed and plates cleared
in the restaurant beneath
the road. The waiter stared up at us
as though we were balloonists—
as we ourselves were always staring
upwards, to an underworld we imagined
high above. All of us caught in
the same perpetual updraft.
From the depths of the kitchen, the chef reached
skywards to serve the diners
overhead. And this way, his finest recipes took flight—
in summer the most transparent
of meals propelled by the lightest
of breezes. In winter, the menus advancing
into the snow, knowing that
the dishes
will follow them.
Ceiling fan, Villefranche
In whose well-rounded company you might sleep
as soundly—pigeons, dervishes
a turbine or waterwheel
installed on the ceiling.
The most perfect circles the ear
recognizes—flawless sigh
of a lettuce drying
in a wire basket
at the end of one long, swinging
arm. Or the rotating
daughters of the Italian Navy, each morning
on the training ship Berlusconi
jogging in circles on the aft deck. Other
equally rehearsed details keep coming around—
the ceremonial cutlasses, sprightly
footwear and gelati,
uniformity of their nut-brown
bikinis. The eye returns to them
what is theirs; just as it keeps returning
to the ceiling fan above us—
a spool
around which
you and I, sleeping or awake,
are slowly unwound.
Tangi, Parihaka
i.m. Te Miringa Hohaia
Everywhere a voice
is heard—
not this voice, but
the hollow back-bone
of a dog, or a volcano
breathing inwards.
Somewhere a sprig,
stem or root, a wreath
worn in the hair
and the river
which is only as deep
as the sky
and the eel
its foundation stone.
Elsewhere a voice
not this one
a beaten drum
in a flax basket—the heart
in its retiring place.
Around the head of each
an encircling greenness—
karaka, karakia, these
expertly woven branches
and leaves
that cannot hold him
to us—
but neither will they
let him go.