Four Poems for the End if the Year

 

1. Nature’s Secret Shame

 

Beneath the soil where stately trees stand tall,

Their branches reaching to the sky, as though

They were waiting to return to godly status, all

Appearances to the contrary, there flow

Strange messages between the roots, as thirst

And compassion, cooperation and curiosity;

While fungi breathe deeply and heave, their thrust

Of gases billow in the darkness, like a heavy sea

That caresses seaweed and shelters damaged shells;

So from species unto species, under our perception

The things that seem to stand unrhymed, or undermine

The oceans when they seek to crack the shore,

Live other lives between themselves, no oak

Espies this act of kindness, nature’s secret shame.

This Darwin never learned, nor Wallace, while Hobbes

Would have bobbed in his grave and Huxley croaked.

 

 

2. Raglan Summer, Black Sand Beaches and Crabs

 

In Raglan the pohutakawa are out in force,

the surfers crowd the waters on Ocean Beach,

and for the first time in decades elephant rocks

are fully exposed, down to the letters of love

gouged out a hundred years ago. I toss

a handful of seashells into the wind; they reach

the yellow foam of the breakers. Someone locks

his childish dreams on the dunes, and will not move

again until the tides wash them away.

I take another handful of sand to test the wind,

And all is flat and silent; only insects

And tiny crabs scurry, while the distant bay

Awaits the whales that never come. Who sinned

That we are cursed today in all respects

With sights and sounds that have no other meaning

Than vague memories and indecipherable scheming?

I let the black granules filter through my fingers

And hope a flower grows where my grief lingers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Aaron’s Laughter

 

I still hear his voice up there screaming out in pain

no longer coming down to chat and sip some tea

and tell me jokes; now something in his brain

was growing which made his life a misery.

When he was gone and the house grew silent,

he was there still, even as the years passed,

and when too the house was gone I spent

long hours listening for the jokes, but at last

I knew that nothing was funny anymore:

his wit was intellectual, his laughter deep,

He taught me something secret. I am poor

now and across too many oceans. I cannot weep

when whole worlds have disappeared. The door

has shut on that other place, the place of peaceful sleep.

 

 

4. Sun Fish Need No Hooks

 

How clear the lakes were then. We could watch the fish

Dancing round the strings we dipped into the water

And wait for some to swallow the worms. I wish

There were times and places like that now, but greater

Evils swirl around our lives than anyone imagined

In those dreamy unreal days, and none of us could see

What lay ahead through the murky future. We pigeon-

Holed our expectations foolishly.

Like sunfish, we were caught without any hooks.

We glided unreasonably towards the bait, were blind

To the anglers on the little pier, read books,

Too many with titles of naive hope. We were kind

Without caution and dared not debate our choices.

When we were caught, no one heard our voices.