Greywacke cobbles
plucked from outer stream bends by raindrops
gathered to a torrent by natures folds
carried east by gravity and flow
to where this stream
at its final destination spent
gave them up.

Red-billed gull cries a protest
flying head first into the biting southerly that scours the firth
whipping phytoplankton and detritus into a frenzy of sea foam
piled by waves into billowing drifts on the shore
glistening and golden in late afternoon light.

A snapper carcass
eye sockets empty
vertebrae laid bare by A Crab Last Supper
aimlessly wandering the strand line postmortem
at the mercy of the ebb and flow of the sea
its remnant flesh feeding sandhoppers
till the next tide
undertaker
arrives
shuffles it on.

Someone
back to the wind
rosy cheeked
squinting north to the mussel farms
dull throb of the barge riding low under the weight of the harvest
the skipper returning to Kaiaua and the pub.

The sun slips down behind Kohukohunui
and the peaks of the ranges cast long leaden fingers
down over the pastureland and forest valleys.

Blue greens vanish
here are the muted dusky greys
the earth too slipping on its jacket.
Dusk is falling
Soon it will be night.

It’s uncanny.
Sometimes
I feel
Like I’m walking
In your shoes.

Staring out at the world
Through the same eyes
Breathing in air
To fill the same set of lungs.
Our ageing faces
Both etched
In familiar and similar places
By three thousand hours of labour
Under the same sun.

Our cracked skin
Both stained
By the gravelly ochre earth
Of this Mother Land
At the head of the Hapuawai.

You are made
Of grit and gumption.
That much and more I got from you
When the random lottery of meiosis
Sealed my fate.

Must be a dominant trait.

Early
before the sun reaches the apex of the house
and casts beams of light and warmth
over the tomatoes and beans
I weed with my eyes closed.

Milkweed
Euphorbia peplus
garden terrorist
stems smooth, round, cool to touch
reached where stem meets soil
tugged loose of earth’s grasp
discarded intact to wither and die.

Once
just once
I watched as the stem broke
milky sap from veins leapt skywards
a catapulted creamy orb of fluid
resulting in ocular euphorbia exposure
acute eye pain
saline washes.

The doctor asked me what got into my eye
14 years old I replied
Euphorbia peplus
matter-of-factly
as though he should have known.

So I weed with my eyes closed
once squirted, twice shy.

Creeping wood sorrel
Oxalis corniculata
felty stems radiating from a point
best gripped below the surface
pulled with a sharp tug.
Its roots pale, an embryonic carrot
softened by three weeks in the fridge.

Nipplewort
Lapsana communis
thin, steely, brittle
easily pulled gripped low
broken, roots intact, grasped high.

Nightshade
Solanum nigrum
leaves a velvet caress.
The soft juicy stems bruised
dampen my fingers
fills the air with the scent of severed tomato laterals.

Knees pressed to the dirt
I open my eyes
shuffle right along the dwarf beans
reposition myself for another assault.

Veldt grass
Ehrharta erecta
bane of my existence.
Pinwheel of flattened stems
leaves with raspy edges
grasped at the centre by my right hand
rotated anticlockwise
till the earth gives it up.

Euphorbia peplus
smooth, round tubes
primed by phloem sap flow
lets loose its defences
conducts a random desperate search for cornea and iris.

All because of you
I weed with my eyes closed.

This river cuts low through time and rhyolite
reaching earth’s bones in a mountain cleft.
Searching for gravity
past silica
and a million misty mornings.

Exposing veins
quartz and gold
this river ignited the hopes of men
who bled and toiled through fatigue, scrub, and soil
to uncover her riches beneath.
Or not.

And now all that remains
are the rusting hulks of failed intentions
slowly falling groundward
through relentless oxidisation
and the growing weight
of honeysuckle
and gorse.

Eroding
gathering
carrying
never failing
this river flows
in its journey to the plains
eventually
the sea.