Poem 13

Tikitere outside Rotorua … Hurutini was the woman of legend who threw herself in … some places time is irrelevant to …

( I think I captured something quintessentially Rotorua with the throttled voices of fumaroles … )

Hell’s Gate

The peacock drags its long bundle of plumage
over the baked ground
                                          its iron cries
part the steam competing with the throttled voices
of fumaroles
there are doves and partridges
on the green garden walk
                                              but only the lone peacock
                                              strays briefly
onto the kiln-hot plain white as salt
where black saturate lakes smoulder
yellow crystals like urine stains
                                                        water seamed
and quick with heat

the woman who jumped in for love
             of a proud man
is still here in this pool face more tender than ever
gases of her body springing up in needle lines
skin a velvet suspension
in the water

                      from the garden comes the cry
                      of her pinhead lover
                      furious
despairing stupid
                                he spreads his tattered fan