Waterfalling words

New Zealand: words and stories

Tui

Tuis build their songs,

Out of everyone else's leftovers.

A squeak, a creak, a whistle,

And a bubbling waterfall trill

That froths like wave foam

And wakes the morning into delight

29/11/14

Tui (Presothemadera novaeseelandiae are beautiful birds 

whose gentlemen where smart tufted bow ties 

of white feathers on their black bibs)

The Falls 

(started at the Erskine Falls in the Great Otway NP, Victoria 

but then finished at falls on the Kaimai Mountains in NZ)

Endless voices,

Shouting or whispering,

Depending on the rain

Voices pouring

Themselves over stone.

Wearing away,

Washing away.

Moss grows,

Ferns drip fronds,

And straps and necklaces,

Leather and pearl and precious metals,

All in green,

And glistening,

In the sprayed whisper

Of the falls.

Trees die

And drop

Stone-smooth trunks

To block

The stream

And build deep,

Dark pools among the

Dinosaur boulders,

Where the voices

Rest.

Who lives in the cold shadow

Of the pool?

Whose are the voices

That sing,

That whisper,

That shout,

That wash away

Worries,

And

Polish the hard rocks of my grief

And anger and pain

Into the rounded boulders

Of hope

Quietly

My words on paper

Write you into black and white

I can't even catch the cloud-grey shades

Of our conversations.

The prospects of the bright colours of our passion

Are lost in the arts of pen and processor

17/11/14

once

Once I had a thought

Of hills and woods and

A cottage by the sea.

Once I had a dream

Of ambitions climbed

And mountains scaled

And hopes flowering

Once I held a promise

Of joy

In my hands,

On my heart.

Once.