Poem 53

A photo of my mother on the Desert Road during her honeymoon … every family has one … when we were working on on our theatre show White Cloud Tim Finn produced a similar image of his mum with Mt Egmont (as it was then) behind …
… I think I remember correctly that when you looked in the viewfinder of Dad’s old camera the image was upside down … 

… young couple beginning a life together … I was always struck by the fact that they came home early …

Woman By Zephyr, 1956

Twisted together with snow
the sides of the mountain limp out
50s weather
snapshot black and white
a room big enough to fit mountains in
her face is somehow creased lost
in the flat fluorescence of sky
and tussock
Ngaruhoe smokes
                     she stands in front of the car
and you know it's cold
and always windy there

the photo smells of stale upholstery
of rugs and sick and dust
you can hear the creak of the old brown leather
box camera turning everything upside down
in my father's hands

in a day or two they cut the honeymoon short
saying they've got better things to do than
just drive around
they make up my brother
out of thin air