Sometimes the beauty
of my home world
is too big to bear
Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0
Too beautiful—a sometimes haiku
conservation
Feel the green
listen to the riroriro*
twinkle over spring
feel the green beyond the tarmac
feel the green
*riro riro: grey warbler
Thirteen waves: v.
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.
Thirteen waves: iii
iii.
The sea does not need me
to say nice things about it.
Love rubs bleak in a gale.
Sap leaks, wind seals, word fails,
wood heals white and shiny.
Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0, photo of New Plymouth Harbour in Cyclone Bola 1988 from Archives NZ, CC BY 2.0.
Thirteen Waves: ii
ii.
Let wood spread
along a beach.
Under the moon-cloud
toetoe will be glowing.
Poem and recording by rachel mcalpine CC BY 4.0.
Toetoe growing in Kaikoura: photo Allan Harris, CC BY-ND 2.0
World: just the words
For the first time, I’ve just recorded a poem for this blog, Poems in the Wild. But it’s not a poem, it’s a song, spoken, so it sounds kind of strange. This is one of the songs in Shaky Places, which will be performed on Saturday 12 November in Auckland by the Auckland Youth Choir. (Yay, by the way!) I can’t rightly record any of the other lyrics in Shaky Places, which is a suite of New Zealand poems set to music by Felicia Edgecombe — they’re wonderful, but not mine own. Luckily, World is what it’s all about.
Now, how do I do this…?
Recording of World, written and read by Rachel McAlpine
Oh, I did it. My iPhone SE, Griffin’s iTalk app, iTunes, and WordPress made that so easy, I may do it again some day. Better, I hope.
World
World
Stone, rain, sea, hill —
they have their way, they have their say.
Wind has a goal, tree has a will.
Sing the ceiling of starlight and sunlight,
and sing the feeling of sandhill and tussock
and cloud, sky, wood, clay, world.
Work, watch, love, save.
Here is the time, now is the place.
See what we have, see what we’ve lost.
Sing the colours of thunder and sunrise,
and sing the shimmer of bellbird and blackbird
and moon, lake, tree, day, world.
Blue, gold, red, green
melt in our eyes, wake up the day,
mix up the night, violet and grey.
Sing the circle of trumpets and colours,
and sing the silver of dreamers and lovers,
and stone, rain, cloud, clay, world.
Dark, day, fire, hail.
Here is the time, now is the place.
They have their will, they have their way.
Sing the measure of solstice and winter,
and sing the seasons of stretching and waiting,
and sea, moon, rain, sand, world.
~ Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0
NOTE: “World” is one of 14 New Zealand poems in the song cycle Shaky Places.
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 