Poetry By Julie Kennedy
Ngakuta BayYou know that bend in the road the one where you think you’ve gone too far when you think perhaps you’ve missed it, and maybe you should turn back, when your passengers turn pale complain of a headache and you see in their eyes a longing for home. Then here it is suddenly, the long straight past the store before the beach, our destination, walk along the foreshore, through the ford dry at this time of the year, remember the bridge that used to be there, admire a branch of sun-dried tortured willow. On the sand’s ridge at low tide seagulls scold your progress, herons fly low, legs skimming the surface, you poke at cockles and crabholes, seagrass marooned in a tidal channel; yachts on moorings face the same way -- wind from the north east. Turn and walk back the way you came, sense the earth and your place in it, feel your frailties released by a peace that burrows beneath your feet, if you stay longer you will see the way the beach redeems itself with each new tide. © Julie Kennedy, 2004 Wild Music 1770 (January) You woke at anchor in Ship Cove and heard tui and korimako singing in chorus each echoing the other, old as time, Joseph Banks, a wealthy companion, helped fund Cook’s Pacific exploration, he described ‘most melodious wild music’. 1822 (June) Years later Russians visited the Sound astronomer, Ivan Simonov noted ‘impenetrable forests filled with birds whose song delighted’ and Bellingshausen reported the sound was like: ‘the beauty of a piano accompanied by flutes’. 2013 (March) With Kaipupu Sanctuary on our doorstep a fence in place, and pests eradicated natives regenerate in shades of green we too may wake to hear that same wild sound vision of a seaside community a mosaic of voices joined in harmony. © Julie Kennedy, March 2013 
|
Read the WorldKatherine Mansfield would have loved the web she could have sat as her health deteriorated & read the world at a glance, contributed to chat rooms, corrected spelling added editorial comment, conversed more immediately with Middleton Murry her horizons expanded beyond those rooms where she spent in troubled pain her invalid days. © Julie Kennedy, 2004 Picton PerspectiveWhere is the curved horizon telling us we are travellers in space only the surrounding hills native bush on the margins settlers were glad of these reminded of lochs and glens the Chinese say our encompassing shapes lend security to our dreams but stand on the beach at Rarangi gaze far out and see a ship like a duck in a shooting gallery disappear over the edge. © Julie Kennedy ShadowsYou rode on horseback to meet the boat the captain handed you a letter ‘dead’, your husband had died in England, dead four months and you did not know shouldn’t you have sensed it, he handed you back your letter unopened, loving thoughts not received. You rode to meet him in awful weather you rode back to Ngakuta at a time when the colours were fading and shadows were on everything, including your soul, at least the rain disguised the tears that flowed you hope your husband is unaware he is no longer here, did his death come in whispers, did he know? You wrote to your brother in Australia licking the stamp was like a farewell post marked Picton, 1894, you told him about the farm and six children you did not know what you were going to do, later you moved back to Pokororo near Motueka, a place you thought of as home. © Julie Kennedy, May 2013 |
