Poem 277

Written for the theatre show White Cloud this is my benediction on all my fellow citizens …

… it was purpose written to be spoken, to have the looping loping rhythm of a conversational chant and was read (by Dena Kennedy at BATS) against the bouncy-but-emotional music of Tim Finn’s song Clarity Begins At Home (also written for and performed in the show) … what I wanted was something fun wry but uplifting too … I was looking for a style and tone that was simple and direct, neither clever nor dumbed down that could be spoken as if from a friend and intimate straight into the eyes of its audience without any barrier or artifice … I’ve seldom written so transparently …

( the John Hiatt song Have A Little Faith In Me lends this its spine … I enjoy the way I’ve captured that truth-behind-a-smile NZ laconicism of tone, how the piece covers a lot of subjects and thematic ground without breaking stride, the red white and blue in the final stanza and especially its upsweep to the ultimate ‘only connect’ kiwi blessing of gidday … )

Faith

Have a little faith
in yourself

have a little faith
your intentions are good
mostly

have a little faith
in the sky
it won’t fall
or scorch you
have a little faith
in yourself
you won’t always win
or come second
or even be picked for the team
you will be dumped down
and held down
by life’s breakers
(watch out for the rip)
but you will survive
as you’ve already survived
so have a little faith

don’t worry so much
about being right
just keep trying
to be right
have faith
not that you will be recognised
but that you will recognise
yourself
(now I’m sounding like Kahlil Gibran
The Prophet given to me on my 17th birthday
by my first girlfriend
thanks Sue have you still got the mood ring
I gave you
I suspect not)

have faith
personally I like the cinema of unease
the dark shapes and shadow
of a hard southern sun
you can see things here nothing
is soft and out of focus
maybe the blueness of the mountains
seen across a broad plain of farms

have faith in your voice
you don’t need to use it as some sort
of sonic weapon
to be heard
or let it go yap-yap-yapping
without a leash in the world
your accent is not so bad
and many a true thing is said
with an ‘eh’ on the end
eh?

have faith in your hands your blood your eyes
your teeth your smile
your attempts to uncomplicate your life
as if it was a tangle of fishing line
(what my grandfather would call a 'nest')
have faith I know you want to be simple
and sunny but the truth is you’re a maze of complexity
and tripwires and you don’t always
understand yourself

have faith that one bright day
you will
though honestly I don’t think
you’ll ever get there
have faith that’s alright
It’s the journey etcetera etcetera
that’s what faith is
not a belief only a kind of optimism
not the laugh of triumph but a grin
as you’re hitting the road
and hoping the road doesn’t
hit you back

it’s the morning
it’s mid-morning in Wellington
on that blue and fabled good day
that never comes
that never comes
then it comes
and the heart sings does it not?
the seals on red rocks
the Pencarrow light white
as an arm out of the blue
it’s really really alright
today
a good day for faith
which like a certain game
is always the winner on the
good day
gidday
gidday
              gidday