Title: Necklace of Stones

Author: DINAH HAWKEN

In: Sport 31: Spring 2003

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, November 2003

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Verse Literature

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Sport 31: Spring 2003

Necklace of Stones

page 226

Necklace of Stones

Each line will be hard.
Each component part
will be hard.

Nothing but water and light
binds these islands
together.

See, when I look
you in the eye both our eyes
are stony.

Black and ownerless.

Landlocked. Charmed.
Askew. That was me
in Europe.

Here: I could be
a fragment of paua shell,
jagged and dazzling

on black cord
at your throat.
Not what I am

a small grey stone.

page 227

A blank world of windows.

The light was so soft
I could have chiselled this line
into the stone wall

of the village church
but no amendment or by-law
would allow it.

So I turned from stone
to a page of brittle,
half-burnt paper.

Try writing on that!

And you. Still you want
to be a native bird, a territory.
You have another thing

coming. Each phrase a pebble,
each pebble a beach.
So hard

is the light that rain keeps coming
down to subdue it.
Can you chorus,

or sky-dive in this light?