Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

I went out to our backyard to pick grapes this morning and was greeted by a beautiful dew-hung spiderweb



It's quite hard to get all those little raindrops perfectly in focus!

Forty Years On

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the Wahine disaster. The house where I grew up overlooked the harbour where this took place.

April 10th 1968

Every year we made the journey
stood on deck watching the wake
draw a thread between islands
north and south where grandparents, aunts
uncles and cousins mirrored each other like
left and right sides of a garment

Back home we watched the ferries pass
morning and evening as sure as
sunrise and tide fall,
tide rise and sunset
Maori, Rangatira, Wahine

That stormy day we watched the broken ship
drift onto rocks, list
the fleet of small craft weaving back and forth
trying to darn the hole in the harbour,
trying to stitch the ship to shore