Poem 102

Written way before recycling but considering the circularity of things … I like the blessing at the end … many a Wellingtonian has been struck by the irony of the name of the landfill …

Happy Valley

The rubbish men are black princes
riding from heaven on their truck
     hanging like flies
     to scoop up an armload
     of our lives
I am my rubbish
                 throwing myself away
shedding like a comet
spent truths of tea leaves tissues
old food and stale magazines
     I cut my fingernails carefully
and let the white rounds of flimsy bone
fall
   to grow whole hands in the luscious rot
of Happy Valley tip
white hands that scuttle at seagulls
through the warmth of old things
turning to gas

I pray you fall into the layers
joyfully
when life sets you out on its corner
for the strong encircling
arm