Days among Trees
It was a year when my two aunts
would not share their sorrow.
Each day they sat at our table
and held their throats
to the light.
Yet silence was a tall vase
between them.
A month passed. A season.
A bud arrived on the doorstep
with a leaf. Pods on the flax
grew blacker.
Then a bellbird entered the garden
and the aunts stole across the clipped lawn to listen.
And Korokoro, the hill my father
loved, shadowed them.
Soon the wind combed an opening
on a dark knoll.
And all through the valley
There were echoes
from the trees.
kanono kawakawa
kotukutuku makomako
mingimingi ramarama
This poem was published in JAAM 22, November 2004.
It will be included in Jan’s collection, Days among Trees,
to be published by Steele Roberts in the winter of 2005.