Author: Rachel McAlpine

Writing a book

Old Box Brownie snapshot of three girls and their dolls.
~ Rachel McAlpine ~ Leave a comment
Old Box Brownie snapshot of three girls and their dolls.
Sisters Jill, Deirdre and Rachel Taylor with dolls on the steps of the Akaroa Vicarage around 1945. Not grown-up yet.

I am writing a book.
It will take some time.
The book has a title: Flatlantis
and another: Tropical Ice.

The poems will grow like pack-ice.
They will flow like sweat.
They will be easy to read.
They will be hard to write.

When the book is published
I will be a grown-up.
How will that feel?
Curious.

 

Shadows on foam

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ Leave a comment

shadow_on_foam.jpg

here we are who we are
shadows on foam
littoral lateral between the sea
and feathery reality

skidding and sliding
here not here nor there
dots in a layer
of water on sand

maybe a simile
no, this is literal
us as the foam
in the shade on the sea

Rachel McAlpine

Who am I? Who are you? How do you know? Sometimes I lose myself in a strange space, and I enjoy those moments of anonymity. Do you? The poem (like many on this blog) is a first draft and will no doubt change and change again: in this case, so appropriately.

Poem and photo cc by 2.00 Rachel McAlpine as usual—i.e. feel free to share. 

Twilight

Issey Miyake bonnet up close
~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 2 Comments

Bare trees silhouetted against a twilight blue sky

inside the gloaming
all shadows flatten
and all pleats are blue

in the pleating, all shadows
are deep and deliberate
and weaving is tender and true

on the twilight horizon
all trees are pointing to heaven
and textured for Earth and for you

how rich is our planet
how pleated, how woven
and in the gloaming, how blue

Issey Miyake bonnet up close

 

 

Your fingers — a haiku

Young man in black robe arranges ferns on the white-painted back of a young Butoh dancer
~ Rachel McAlpine ~ Leave a comment
Young man in black robe arranges ferns on the white-painted back of a young Butoh dancer
Ikebana friend and Butoh friend preparing for a photo shoot in a Kyoto garden, 1992

your fingers
fronding my spine—
green waters

Haiku written in a workshop at Palmerston North on Valentine’s Day 2019. Poem and photo cc by 2.0 Rachel McAlpine: copy and share as you please, with attribution.