Sport 31: Spring 2003
Necklace of Stones
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 227A 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?