Pictures From the Floating World

Don’t fret for the rowers huddled beneath
The Great Wave. Those squadrons of white talons
are foam, and where harbours are hidden by
the trough, a summit pokes through. The other
thirty-five views of Mount Fuji tell
the same story: an old god offering
a bearing. Among the residents of
ancient Edo, little eclipsed the awe
nurtured on the Kanto Plain. Certainly
Hokusai, for all his range, did not picture
their great beyond from a higher place.
A snow-caked cone, say, from an exit row
to Izumo. These shots of an idle
crater, before it was capped by a wing.

page 255

Hitch

after Maui and Manhire

It can be quite a stretch to haul
the north closer, given that great trench

in between. After lunch we
caught rides on a succession of

straights, a crooked thread line
of far peaks stitching our plains to sheets

of clouds. Only the closed mouth of
the evening vessel stalled us.

Now, among ponga overlooking
the sound, my torch shines on a thin

book she packed. It’s about our known
universe (her tutor said). How we all

live at its edge. In one poem
the word Coromandel really sticks out.

page 256

Small Revolutions

Place the casing over
the motor; click the casing

into place. To what I learned
about building a breeze, Alisa

fastened propellers for
Emanuel shuttling back

and forth, inserting oscillating
pins. By the end of the line

two inspectors had pushed
enough of our buttons, tested

all three speeds. (Side to side
the heads exhaled

in unison.) Outside, the Upper
Negev was seasoned

with olives, unpicked far as
the watch tower. Round the fans

talk turned again, to why
we were assembling.

page 257

Superphosphate

A spot in my eyes. If not for the pilot
interrupting the audio, I would have
missed it. An island made of coral, he says,
and millennia of migrating birds taking
bathroom breaks. Even up close, Nauru was
hard to make out; an Aucklander in Sydney
regarding a rock that might be worth
a look. The one, all along, propping open
the lab door. Then darkness, lit by mining
machines (see: Earhart and Noonan halfway
to Howland). Ground down, the islanders
scattering. Swooping sounds in Waimate,
an outhouse door ajar. Squint as he might
our father couldn’t see the dust settling.