xiii.
I should be out the porthole,
surfing violet mohawks,
bursting the orange horizon.
But in this Fokker Friendship
we are dozing
over the disc of dusk towards
the cardboard box
you say is my home too
for a while
if I like.
(One eye juicing the sunset.
One eye tasselling
wigs of pingao.)
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0, photo by Phil Capper CC BY 2.0
xii.
It’s not the atmosphere
that wounds the gannet.
The air revolves in her wake,
she horns her wings,
the South Pole swivels
and gravity inflates.
The earth is an eyeball
lashed and lidded;
every stabbing shocks
the eyes that drive the beak.
The hunter, suddenly goosey,
bobs on the mound of water
that will blind her.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0, photo by Avenue CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia.
Note: Gannets risk their lives when they dive. Whether they really risk losing their eyesight after repeated high speed dives, I have no idea — but that was a common belief at the time I wrote the poem around 1985. Please do correct my errors for me. And what a spectacular sight they are!
xi.
You know they dumped dioxin
and smashed the drums
and let it leak
little
by permanent little
on to the world’s
most musical beach.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0, photo of Backbeach by Dave Young CC BY 2.0.
x.
You’re asleep
and waves of air
slide in and out your lungs;
five inspirations
for every snore of the ocean.
Once in a while wind
bumps the overhanging tree,
and we both turn over like a wave,
and your belly warms my back
with perfect timing.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0, photo by Dave Young CC BY 2.0 via Flickr
ix.
The first penguin peels her voice,
and the shuffle inside the wall
is a field mouse
rushing an octave through.
When it snows on the mountain,
they feel like improvising.
The sea brushes our earlobes:
skeins and skeins of whisking tails
drumming with silk on the globe.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine cc by 2.0, photo of Mt Taranaki by Denis Bin, CC BY-ND 2.0 via Flickr
viii.
A rock kneels up in the ocean;
an ocean climbs over the rock;
a fringed eye is blinking.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0, photo of rock pools by Chris Gin CC NC-ND 2.0.
vii.
Two girls nearby are trying
to get pregnant.
All weekend they try like mad
and also Tuesdays.
One has the mouth of a madonna.
The other one might be sorry.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0. Photo of “surfing past the rock” by Dave Young CC BY 2.0.
vi.
It would be better
if this bach
had a bathroom.
I think I can safely say that.
(It
wouldn’t exactly be
this bach, of course.)
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0. Photo by Tony Foster CC BY-ND 3.0
v.
Soon the baches will be flattened.
Fennel mashed to the roots
honks out to minahs
waddling on the road,
blackbirds straddle wanderings
of old pohutukawas.
Bread rises without any fuss.
So does the tide.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine cc by 2.0, photo of New Zealand seaside baches by Stu Haigh, CC BYNC via Flickr.
iv.
Not many people understand that
driftwood
curled up high by the tide
is the weather-front,
a rendez-vous of sticks and sand,
the aged lovers holding hands
as tight as a whelk in a shell,
and the embryo of a dune.
Look, you don’t just slap up
a concrete wall and call it
real estate.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine cc by 2.0, photo by Dave Young CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.
Dave Young’s note:
Strong winds blow the black sand along the beaches of coastal Taranaki and expose the broken driftwood deposits of storms long past. This driftwood serves as a foundation for the dunes.
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 