Poem 157

Another summer in Miramar poem … I still had an office at home where I had my desk and typewriter (same battered desk I’m sitting at now) in what would become Katherine’s bedroom … it was on the side of the house looking across to Maupuia so some poems came from just looking out the window …

( I like the word headdress, the alliteration of slope to slaughter and the images of ritual sacrifice tied to solstice … )

Solstice

Rain creeps in
silently lightly
unwilling to disturb our two week summer

     yesterday there was a fire
     the black arrowhead on the hillside opposite

     we stood on the verandah and watched
     and all across the valley people watched
     as if it was a ceremony
     conducted with sirens
     marked with flashing lights
     fire priests in silver coats
     and headdress

      we call each other out to see
      the orange smear of flame
      graze up the slope to slaughter
      dry spirit of summer
      rising
      to meet the crossed
      knives of water