For National Poetry Day:
Rain by Hone Tuwhare.
This Friday’s poem is Humming by Hone Tuwhare from his collection Oooooo…..!!! published by Steele Roberts.
I’ll leave it to you to find – or not – a message for Waitangi Day in it.
Humming
It is a house to be constructed with care
for it has no confining walls
thus permitting expansion: vertical
growth is not inhibited for there is no limit to the height of the ceiling
stretching to heaven. This house
can endure given a chance, that’s
for sure … H m m m m
But since it is of earth its foundations may be
built of sand: and because there are
no confining walls this fragile house
of love may be seen as layers of light
and colour – a feeling tone – warm, purple
orange grey hot and cold with lots of blue
and yellow to make it green – green
was predicatble … H m m m m
Fleshed out though, this house of love isn’t
ageless, but ages old. It has form; contour.
It has presence; a brilliant arc uniting
heaven and hell; love-thoughts in pursuit of
a physical expression – a noisy, gloppy
proclamation –
Aha Aha – Aha – Aha Aha
… and horses, huffing and pounding into
the straight, riders snarling, cruel whips
flailing – the anguish of stretched leather
reeking sweetly of sweat … And reason? Ahh.
Reason is a hunchback of irrelevance backing
quietly out the door.
But where are the flowers – the select flowers
of endearment, soul-food to dazzle the heart?
O, they’re here, all right: there, there
and THERE … H m m m
– Hone Tuwhare –
The ODT reminded me that today is the first anniversary of Hone Tuwhare’s death which makes his poem, No Ordinary Sun, an appropriate choice for this Friday’s poem.
I found it on Hone’s website.
Tree let your arms fall:
raise them not sharply in supplication
to the bright enhaloed cloud.
Let your arms lack toughness and
resilience for this is no mere axe
to blunt nor fire to smother.
Your sap shall not rise again
to the moon’s pull.
No more incline a deferential head
to the wind’s talk, or stir
to the tickle of coursing rain.
Your former shagginess shall not be
wreathed with the delightful flight
of birds nor shield
nor cool the ardour of unheeding
lovers from the monstrous sun.
Tree let your naked arms fall
nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
This is no gallant monsoon’s flash,
no dashing trade wind’s blast.
The fading green of your magic
emanations shall not make pure again
these polluted skies . . . for this
is no ordinary sun.
O tree
in the shadowless mountains
the white plains and
the drab sea floor
your end at last is written.
– Hone Tuwhare –
This Friday’s poem is Rain by Hone Tuwhare, chosen because we’ve had some but need some more.
It’s from An Anthology of Twentieth Century New Zealand Poetry, published by Oxford, University Press, 1976.
Rain
I can hear you making
small holes in the silence
rain
If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut
And I should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind:
the steady drum-roll
sound you make
when the wind drops
the something
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground
But if I should not
hear
smell of feel or see you
you would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain
– Hone Tuwhare –
This Friday’s poem chose itself while I was browsing in a bookshop yesterday. It’s by Hone Tuwhare and comes from Oooooo……!!! published by Steele Roberts.
(In case you’re wondering I bought the book).
Meander, but trap the meaning
of your thoughts, on paper
For reasons
I cannot say
nor state
nor overcome, a tendency
vague, nor infer an abandoned modesty, to
have them
cast in stone? No.
No…no…no! And to you,
Fate, a double, ‘no-no’ –
which in Maori, means
‘arse-holes’ (nono)
to
you,
Fate! And to my
hand, unfalteringly –
I say: Go! Go for it! Let
your writing-wrist
flex, curve lovingly, making easy-going words of magic
– on the paper. Yea!
– Hone Tuwhare –