a sunny Saturday along the foreshore
with youthful associates of Jesus proselytising
could be the last chance for some
or salvation for others

the sky offers neither
evidence nor denial
while somewhere beyond the low-rise city
a rooster crows

the now cynically bilingual council
agrees it’s always good
for our rangatahi to have something in common
to interest and amuse them

but history’s a tight fist
knuckling the back of the neck
two centuries of colonisation
have done nothing to alleviate

nor can changing the labels
on the package go far
promises broken are still broken
with new promises pasted over them

my neighbour Jim who played
halfback for Taranaki in the 1960s
and had two All Black trials
would drop one of the wings
from the current test squad
because he has female hands
incapable of reliably
scragging a bloke
from the other side and thus
a weak spot in our defence

not all his opinions are by
any means so stern but having
lived and breathed the game
for over eighty years he knows
what he’s talking about
praising in detail
in their suitable positions
active players he admires
or summarising the careers
of past team mates and opponents

a short and solid figure
well into his ninth decade
he’s out there on a weekday
pushing the white paint spray-
machine around the local park
to freshen the touchlines
goal-lines and halfway
and the twenty-twos
in preparation for Saturday’s
grades and their supporters

there’s something generous too
about his habits of thought
characteristic of a time
when sport wasn’t work
but recreation after
or between spells of work
derived from the community
and embedded in it
while there were still communities
worth being proud about

I still have my orange-covered copy
of the Penguin Modern Poets selected Rilke

though the only poems that interest me in it now
are ‘Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes’ and the go

he had at the pompous task of writing
one’s own epitaph (his is rather good)

and floating on the front RMR’s brooding face
from brows to chin prompted one silly girl

to tell me how compelling his eyes were
something he in fact made handy use of in life

when persuading some noble lady or other to lend him
a castle or chateau to compose immortally in

according to the price pencilled on the flyleaf
the book cost me 80c new in the currently fabled 60s

my Omar Khayyam years of a book of verse
a beer and a packet of twenty at a reasonable outlay

one sunflower
heavy on the stem
leans towards the garage door
as if contradictorily
seeking shadow

this has been a rainy summer
so all the usual local lore
is in abeyance

men older than I am
stand perplexed above their garden beds
or interrogate the sky

we are those the future
may not have time to harm
but there are children
and their children too

early in my time here
in my late fifties

I was at the bottom of Maratahu St
when the sun dimmed

and another rain squall combed the grass
and shook rooftops and tree canopies

and a woman of about my age
on the opposite side of the road

hood over short-cropped grey hair
hands deep in a blue parka’s pockets

sang out in a friendly voice
bloody Taranaki weather

the Concert Programme in its heyday
stipulated suits for the men
twinset and skirt or a frock
for everyone else

the timbre of an old school tie
could be discerned on air
and received pronunciation
eliminated the local

you would be excused for assuming
there were no natives or sheep
and the calendar of the seasons
hung upside down

broadcasts to students allowed
scant leeway for topical sounds
(daytime listeners pounced on the phone
or resorted to the mail)

a diminutive audience
more stubborn by the year
dissolving like a lozenge
in the nation’s throat

one mum each week
washed the team’s jerseys
but your shorts and socks
were your own concern

the player whose turn it was
took home in a canvas kitbag
the muddy tangle
collected from the shed

to be returned next Saturday
for distribution by the coach by number
always clean and dry and neatly folded
the bag clean and dry too

with fifteen men and reserves
it took longer than a season
to come round again
the weekday transformation

of the crumpled residue
of rucks and scrums and lineouts
tackling or diving over for a try
so when they ran out

along the halfway line before kick-off
forwards and halves
and midfield and outside backs
they did everyone proud

he told me he’d fallen in love
with a Russian girl
who wore her black hair
in two shortish pigtails

and dressed in black
to seem invisible
while she took lessons
in a third language

she worked in a meat restaurant
to cover her tuition
evading the hands
of customers and coworkers

he dined there on all her nights
neither speaking
nor raising his eyes
from the gristle on his plate

her shadow multiplied
by the down-lights over the table
surrounding him
would have to be enough

at sixteen
she was so beautiful
blokes fell off their bikes
riding past looking at her

a King’s boy and one
from the local high school
got in a fistfight over her
and both came off worse

of course she went out first
with the captain of the XV
who only admired himself
but she did better later on

the trick was to pretend
you weren’t interested
which took some effort
but worked in the end

my brother tells me on the phone
during lockdown
that since it’s now clear of effluent
spoonbills have returned to the Manukau Harbour

large white goose-like birds he says
standing asleep in a bunch
under a shoreline tree
or shovelling the mud for tucker
at low tide off the Weymouth boat ramp

all this is in the context
of his recent successful cataract surgery
having healed to give him
better eyesight than ever in his life
coinciding with something worth seeing