Longing

Tomorrow, I'll perform.
There will be love and song, and longing.
Photo: Cindy Weinstein performance, Beyond Baroque, Los Angeles
Text: Ballroom Poetry, Riddiford St, Wellington, New Zealand, 15 May, 4-6pm

If I look to the west...

...this is what I might see.
Photo: Out our west-facing windows, Carterton, New Zealand

brother, sister, sister, brother

Today, four lives intersect. My brother we once called Titibaum was born today, a brother I played hard with as a child, baseball basketball whatever ball, joyfully.  And today I live with a man whose sister was also born today, and they also played as children. His little scar is on the underside of the knee. Mine is under an eye.
Photo: Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand
Text: EnJOY the day, Titi Stephen and Heather Maria

tell us a story

Sit down and tell us a story.
Paekakariki train station, New Zealand

pink time

Ah, long pink grass. Reminds me of
'Drink long opinions full of violets',
a line from my poem for the colo(u)rs
pink and purple.
Photo: Pink grass on the dunes at Castlepoint, New Zealand
Text: excerpt from 'the way we like it', published in Delicate Access
The line is also the title of a favo(u)rite book review:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/feat/archives/2004/12/05/2003213910/2

a seal and me

Yesterday, Sunday, Mother's Day,
we walked to a lighthouse.
A seal basking on the path.
Photo: Castlepoint, New Zealand

like mother like daughter

I put my foot on each carpet.
Photo: A hallway in a hotel, Urumqi 
Text: p.s. My mother would do the same thing.

clouds, stars and the old moon

'The clouds float back and forth through the wind's doors...
Are they waiting for a star, or for the Old Moon
or a new Almighty God
to finally lie down here at rest
so all will be right with the world.'
Photo: Dahlias, Carterton, New Zealand
Text: Excerpt of 'Are They Waiting for a Star'
by Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994), translated from the Norwegian
by Robert Hedin. I thank my father for intoducing the poet.

L is for lake

'I prefer the ocean and some of the rivers I've seen, but for writing I like the manageable water of lakes... A lake can be made to fit what the poem's typography demands.'
Photo: A river meets a lake, all moonlit, Rotorua, New Zealand
Text: The entry for 'L' from Mark Strand's book, 'The Weather of Words'

o little one

When I saw these stones on the beach,
I thought of Elizabeth Madox Roberts.

'O little one away so far,
You cannot hear me when I sing.

You cannot tell me what you are,
I cannot tell you anything.'
Photo: Paekakariki, New Zealand
Text: 'The Star' by Elizabeth Madox Roberts (1881-1941)

circulation

I have always loved sleeping with lots of air coming
into the room.
Photo: Looking out from the bedroom, Wellington, New Zealand

fate and snowfall and work

'Fate is a consuming snowfall of white butterflies'

'Do not depend on the hope of results... but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself'

Photo: Artichoke, New Zealand
Text: First excerpt from 'The Cabbages' by novelist-poet Janet Frame.
The second from 'Letter to a Young Activist' by monk-poet-activist Thomas Merton.  

blue is

Blue is everything we cannot touch.
Photo: The concrete structure is a communal area
of an American Indian reservation, New Mexico, USA
Text: The opening of my poem 'Seeing blue' in the series 'colo(u)r'

the moon forgives

Almost thirty years ago, I made a promise
I did not keep. The moon forgives.
Photo: Moon over Lake Rotorua, New Zealand