Spring rains continued into
last summer keeping our
temperatures down, soaking
our land into watery Autumn.
Now winter has brought
icy rain and gales vast
drifts of southern snow.
Across our waterlogged sodden
land, loose rocky scree and
soil shift down rocky hillsides
steep gullies and cliffs, pouring
stony soil and rocks on to
main highways through the
Manawatu Gorge to Napier,
Ngauranga Gorge into
Wellington, along Kaikoura
coast to earthquake
shaken Christchurch.
After all our shaky isles’
earthquake upheavals
how strange to see our
land washing down in to
rivers and sea under
rain’s constant onslaught.
Previously posted August 2017.
Month: June 2022
Moonlight
Light pours in through my
2am kitchen window as I
fetch a glass of water
backlights bedroom and
living room curtains.
Stepping out my front door
I see sharp cut shadows
of roofs fence garage in
the full moon’s light from
high overhead in a strange
brightly lit world under a
black sky flecked with
starlight’s distant pinpricks.
Strange light so bright
under black heavens.
Previously posted August 2017.
Genetic Implosions
They met in their thirties
after singleness led to more
singleness and childlessness.
They looked forward to raising
children in a family they
created for themselves.
At last they had each other
marriage and a home together.
Two children arrived before
their parents turned forty
another slipped in just after.
A thriving family culture
burgeoned with visits, cards,
phone calls, skyping, texts
and emails with uncles, aunts
brothers, sisters, cousins, with
grandparents living nearby.
Genetics now threw forth its
ticking time bombs in children’s
genetic problems. As these were
faced head on, new health
time bombs confronted the
older generation debilitating
grandparents in their sixties,
in their seventies.
The new human longer life
is erratic in its well being.
Previously posted July 2017.
Keyboards
In the swinging sixties
while completing a degree
for a library career I
attended night school classes.
Each week we practised touch
typing with keyboards hidden
under black bibs anchored
round our necks and typewriters
by solid black elastic.
We tapped keys in time to thepoetry
teacher’s calling: “a” space “a”
space – on to “a-s-d-f”, to speed
tests for words per minute.
Then I practised nightly at
home on a huge “imperial”.
Rejected by the library course
I went on to teacher training
with a smart little portable
for assignments and planning,
later replaced with that miracle
– the electric typewriter – .
Twenty years after my night
classes came an extraordinary
invention on which I had to
learn word processing ……
…… computers ! ……
In serial monogamy I have gone
through three computers, for
at a certain age they fail.
The last one died because its
“on” switch could not work
or be repaired ! digital death !
Previously posted July 2017.
At The Grocer’s
Amaranth quinoa chia flax seeds
bulgur wheat millet couscous.
Outlandish names on bulk
jars and bins at today’s
grocer’s shop – the supermarket.
Once our grocer’s shop was one
of the little shops clustered
around the haphazard cross
roads of five busy roads.
Butcher, baker, chemist, dairy
greengrocer draper stood
beside fishmonger’s hardware,
stationer’s and shoe shops.
Each shop kept to its own
line of goods, each shopkeeper
served customers at the counter.
When our first superette opened
an old lady complained to the
manager that the checkout girl
would not fetch the items on
her shopping list. He said he
paid her to stay at the till, not
fetch items for customers.
A strange world indeed !
What would the old lady have
thought of amaranth, quinoa.
chia, flax seed and bulgur wheat ?
Previously posted July 2017.
Working Women Dine Out
We operators working strange hours
at the call centre day and night
weekdays and weekends sometimes
met friends sometimes strangers
from the constantly changing staff
during lunchroom breaks.
To meet friends from long
serving staff one woman
set up dinners to meet
socially outside work hours
early in the week when
incoming calls were fewer.
Six o’clock dinners for
those with early shifts
to be on time next day.
Non operator friends and family
working conventional hours
thought it odd not to dine
out at later hours later in
the week. We were content
to dine at early hours
early in the week to catch
up with each others’ news.
We still meet for early
dinners as we retire
gradually one by one.
Previously posted July 2017.
A Bumper Crop
A cool wet summer
expelled our usual drought
to the disgust of those
preferring baking
temperatures, bright blue
skies, blazing sunshine.
Now in icy winter
the neighbours’ mandarin
tree at our fence
surprises us with a
heavy crop of little
juicy orange citrus gems.
It used to sprout these
little fruits randomly under
its leafy canopy. Green leaves
would quiver, flip upside down
as green silvereyes dived into
its orange clusters for a
succulent feast of insects
and iridescent ladybugs.
Now the silvereyes shelter
from icy winds and freezing
rain while we harvest this
bumper crop as best we can.
Previously posted July 2017.
Dimmed Sunshine
Late this winter morning
the sun stands high in a
pale bird’s egg blue sky.
Yet its light from this
unclouded sky shines dimly
like the diminished sunlight
of the summer solstice when
I stood outside at midday
as the moon eclipsed
the fiercely blazing sun.
Today distance dims
the sunlight as the earth
spins through the winter
solstice far from the sun.
Previously posted July 2017.
Sorry (3)
For two hundred and twenty
years white settlers poured
off their ships, later their planes
on to the continent’s coastal
areas establishing towns grade
businesses industry, white culture
spreading inland to farm crops
livestock around market towns.
For many millennia the continent’s
original inhabitants hunter gatherers
had roamed the continent’s deserts
grasslands, abundant coasts. Now
they faced and alien race
with and alien culture which
deemed them worthless.
So two cultures crossed paths,
crossed purposes, the new culture
prevailed. The continent’s original
race went under, struggled then
and now, gradually hauls itself
out of the dark murky morass.
After two hundred and twenty
years the shite government
apologised to the brown race
which still has far to go to
rediscover themselves, find
their true identity and culture.
Previously posted July 2017.
lifecameos 