Summer Wedding
(for Sina & Johnny)
I sit in our backyard shade drinking
ice-cold beer and the sun suspended in it
Everytime I put down my glass
the emperor sun is reborn in the liquid -
an embryo cauled in fire a Van Gogh
sunflower the succulent yellow of kina
Along the backfence a peach tree
a gum tree creepers and ponga
six cicadas: two in the peach
three in the gum tree one in the creepers
I count them by their different songs
All week my son and I have weeded
the flower beds trimmed the hedges
mowed the lawns raked and swept
watered the young pohutukawa we planted
after Christmas in the far corner of the yard.
Last night in my
sleep the fullmoon
wore a necklace of tabua above
Maungawhau and our city of black glass
Maungakiekie's face was a moko
of green fire (The volcanoes died long ago)
Our home and yard are as neat
as the cicadas' celebrating chorus
ready for Sina's wedding tomorrow
I keep drinking the sun to that
Sina ia manuia le lua aiga!
© Albert Wendt
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