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Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers April 2023
While we are waiting, poems by Alexandra Fraser.
While we are waiting
embankments glow with early dandelions
cowparsley and crocosmia
and the train comes on time
and there is Pachelbel’s Canon
and there are the blues of indigo
and periwinkle and violet
and hydrangea buds fatten on brown stems
we thought were dead
there are regular sunsets and sunrises
and apple crumble leftovers for breakfast
birds fluster and peck in the rain
greens of plantains paspalum kikuyu
and light glints from quartz inclusions
in the mulching waterworn pebbles
glowing sparks like so many stars
in the images from the new telescope
everyone everywhere is entranced
distracted
we look across the universe millions of years
to the time of the dinosaurs
when they too were skywatching
and waiting and grew feathers in hope
now we inspect each other’s skins
looking for nubs of miraculous growth
but sometimes while we are waiting
we flick away the fat new buds
from their hopeful springtime stems
as we sabotage our optimisms
without thought
one splintering twig at a time
Aubade for bee dance
Dawn light slides past the blinds
I don’t want to burrow through sorrow any more
turning up the same wretched things
that have been found fondled discarded
by so many over and over
The times are thick with it those words
are on repeat old vinyl
returning again and again
spinning on turntables that won’t die
I don’t want to feel the heavy dust coating my palms
grit dampened in early dew gathering
in slick wet semi-circles under my nails
the fibrous net of dead roots entangling
every syllable
I want to wake to the sweetness again the delight
which is elusive to me
though I know it must be there
somewhere there are signs
I shall become a tracker looking for the bent twig
the shadow of a hand-print the perfect shade
of blue rimming a cup
the scent of crushed sage and geranium leaf
the flight of bees towards nectar
the honey of life sticky adherent transferable
whispers of Bach floating from an open window
the crack of a pegged sheet flexing in the wind
Moths will come in darkest night
to drink our sleeping tears
You are unaware sleeping
There is a moth gentled on your cheek
like a giant tear feathered velvet
a curling proboscis extrudes
probes along spiky lashes
tastes moisture salt sorrow
you leak grief to the night air
Your daytime face is desert sand
arid anger you no longer write of love
you are enraged despairing grieving
your words are bruised on the page
in isolated misery you rail without hope
against misogyny liars manipulators
against every trolling fascist every climate change denier
against every hand that slaps a moth into a candle flame
Will we ever touch again
sandcovered fingers reach
to draw love-hearts in drying sand
those long languorous summer days
remember them?
sun baked skin high cirrus drifting on the blue
the long recurring roll of surf
an ocean of salt tears pulled by the moon
night comes again relentlessly
and with it come the moths
to drink our sleeping tears
© Alexandra Fraser
Alexandra Fraser lives in the west of the beautiful Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, surrounded by kauri and tree-fern. She has been published in magazines and anthologies in Aotearoa and internationally, and has been highly placed in many poetry competitions. Alexandra is a member of the Isthmus creative and critique group of poets, whom she met while completing the Master Creative Writing at AUT. She’s published two poetry collections through Steele Roberts (‘Conversation by Owl-Light’ (2014), ‘Star Trails’ (2019)) and is working on two more – one on history and ecology, the other on networks.