– 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.

– 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?