Graham Lindsay

 
Seeing as how

The cups ring
                        my father sings
staggering out of the lemon tree
eyes brilliant

with song
arms bloodied by thorns drunk
with the scent of lemon flower

like a sparrow in a dustbath dancing
in the work
of selecting wood
and pruning it
giving the tree

room to breathe

now he's silent
since I called him ‘Coffee!’
recalling him
from his reverie

he begins again
talking to himself
in the bathroom mirror putting on
a sticking plaster

and in the lemon tree
where he goes back
to replace a ladybug, tilting it
on his little finger hatching its light
sometimes blue sometimes green
‘It's sort of metallic isn't it?’ he says
showing me how

From Return to Earth (Christchurch: Hazard Press, 1991)
© Graham Lindsay

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Last updated 30 December, 2003