POEMS & STORIES

The mountains 

do not remember

asking the forests 

to shelter birds 

with silent tongues

and wings of bark. 

CB 2008

These poems form part of a body of work I made in response to the waterways of Western Fiordland, some of them written whilst on board the conservation yacht, The Breaksea Girl. A group of us were fortunate to spend six days and nights in and around Doubtful and Dusky Sounds, a protected, once-pristine area of black water, red kelp, primordial forest, 'vanishing' waterfalls and - until quite recently - a cacophony of birdsong. Sadly, predators - cats, rats and stoats - have resulted in a severely diminished bird population and significant damage to the forest floor; this in turn has led to the canopy thinning which implies potentially dramatic long-term changes to the ecology in the area. We were shocked and saddened to witness firsthand what felt like the loud absence of birds. . .    

Vanishing Waterfalls - Snug Cove, Western Fiordland

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                            APPROACHING ACHERON PASSAGE FROM THE OPEN SEA

             This is no trick of the light -
             the headlands are being carried away
             stone by rock by stone.
             Neither wind nor rain nor day

             nor night can deter these gulls:

             watch them soar

             and plummet, pick clean

             the coastline’s bones. It’s work

             and it’s a game, their winged insistence

             their raucous reclamation.

             CB

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                         LOVE THE WATERS



                         Stop this hustling about. 

                         Take a small boat

                         down the river. Fish

                         in the rain, cherish

                         the green moss, love

                         the waters that offer up

                         their purity – 
                         love the waters.

                         CB

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                   SOTTO VOCE 

Striking, the ambiguity of language – 

sound and sound, hold and hold, 

birth and berth.

Sotto voce. Sotto voce.

Our brave boat’s hull

is a dull silver arc

at odds, and at one

with the ocean’s shifting

meniscus, the sky infinite

yet Doubtful as a clenched fist,

a menace of wishful thinking.

Mariners without local knowledge

are advised to exercise caution.

I am no old man of the sea - my stomach

one of two that pitch and turn

in 4m swells - but Lance and the Breaksea Girl

are unperturbed; back and forth she rocks

back and forth, a metronome used, by now,

to holding her own in stormy waters. 

Sotto voce. Sotto voce.

Ours is hardly the first voyage, neither will it be

the last. There are records aplenty of this coastline, 

these steep, hard-nosed mountains, 

the seductive tongues of waterfalls.

           

I have scoured the record books,

wondered more about the lines not there

than the many written; nowhere

do we find Cook – or Orton –

writing of love or lust

or loneliness at sea; in the journals, no poetry

to soften the un-yielding years, the reek

of sour beer and unwashed skin,

the loud absence of women.

These men, too, must surely have known

the sudden singe of heat

on heart, the unconfided bruise?

    But

    who

    am

    I

    to

    make

    such

    assumptions?

On the edge of the clearing weather,

mountain, sky and ocean lean towards

each other with conspiratorial intention.

They are lifetimes ahead of us

the way they know how to sleep

together, dream together, lie awake

in the dark together, rarely - and always - 

alone with their separate thoughts.

Where are we to drop anchor?

I am reluctant to interrupt this silence.

CB

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Before we set sail on the Breaksea Girl, our Captain Lance suggested that should any one of us feel a need for space, we should speak up and he’d drop us off on a convenient rock for as long as might be deemed necessary.

‘Can’t you just picture it,’ said Gillian. 'Ten artists, ten rocks?’

TAONGA PUORO

    for Gillian Whitehead

This unsteady place of black water and red kelp insists

we lay down our tools and listen.

     From where I stand, spine to the rope, I catch her

     in the act – eyes closed, head back – undisturbed by silence

     or squall, the sharp/flat cadences of weather.

She’s with us on the Breaksea Girl, but music

is her separate boat.

     See how her face is wet

     with notes, her throat a waiting bird.

     Taonga Puoro surge in her chest like waterfalls.

How strange I should remember here a line I read

long, long ago; bees in Mykanos hum in a minor chord.

      Here, the scale is unpredictable, the thrum

      that of a sailor’s cap, an incidental island,

      a glissando of salt shattering the shadows of dark-bellied fish.

We sail through contrapuntal seas -

our private charts, our common geography.

      Ten artists, yes, and at least as many rocks. But

      in this unsteady place of black water and red kelp

      we do as we must. We lay down our tools and listen.

CB 


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2009  Double Portrait - Story shortlisted for The Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing (theme 'Edge of the Universe')

2005  ICE TONGUE

2007  Other Voices Poetry

New Zealand Society of Authors - Writer profile