– 9 –

Raurimu Spiral

We drive through
the clear night.
The dark strangely
light from an almost
full moon.
Arrive at the house.
There's fire. Your
first friends. The ones
you learned
language with, trying
your beginners' sounds
out on each other.
One, now a gardener,
names plants. Says
look, umbrella moss,
in hushed tones.
Her sister is the
mother of two girls
who look just like
her when she was the
beautiful wide-faced child
in all our photographs.
She now holds her
third child in her arms
a dark boy an hour
new to the world.
We make our acquaintance
then sleep
while across the paddocks
a train circles the
hillside of our

– 10 –

childhood.
Twice it passes
the house where we
dream, all of us, of
the past.
Memory being
this trip we take.
The snow coming down
to cover
everything.