Michele Leggott
the liberty of parrots
one thing leads to another
though the trail is not always
obvious a good idea a boat ride
crossed wakes purling behind
the double hull the city beginning
its morning and up on the ridge
one dreaming spire made by the man
from Chicago who understood
fantasy and faced his poured concrete
with white stone from the south
the docent who let us in
was a teacher of Shakespeare
Byron and the Indian poets
we went to the lantern
and climbed iron ladders to where
the four faces of time in reverse
threw their fantastical light
around a dusty shell
the forty eight very rich hours
were rubies in leadlight that glass
made from gold that light
holding all lights extasiado
the end of the world just before
the first wave hits yes that high
above the city and over the sea
the docent gave us directions
to the oldest known rose
in the country but we detoured
looking for a museum
and the answer to a question
about an elephant dead long ago
in a small mountain town perhaps
collected into eternity here
along with bronze snails holding up
the banister and the delicate bones
of lesser primates in cases along the wall
sure enough in a cupboard
within a cupboard were the skulls
of two elephants behind glass
weird gas masks in the dark
soft sad glow of ivory
we took a lot of photos hoping
for a positive identification
in the not too distant future
then went to look for the rose
somewhere between History
and Classics Rangihoua
and Missolonghi
it was unprepossessing
when we got there Rosa rubiginosa
the sweet briar a bramble
dug up and replanted by historians
lucky because someone destroyed
its progenitor at the mission station
as a noxious weed the way
the dead artist’s painting
went into a skip outside Zoology
but the parrots he borrowed
were never returned to their cases
tough little rose at the end of the world
the first wave hits as we return
for flowers to mark
the climbing of the white tower
the reparation of bones
and the freedom of parrots everywhere
