Tuesday Poetry: “Ti”
Ti
Akaroa Heads
Cordyline on a windswept point stark
each frond stabbing
sharp as a taiaha’s blade
defying the elements
facing down the ocean – that vast expanse
conquered first by Kiwa
the far voyaging salt encrusted
sculpted by endless distance
always looking ever longing for land
lying over the next line of horizon –
the darker smudge of blue
lifting to green above the deep swell
the first sighting eyes shaded
of that solitary tree piercing sky
above a coastal headland marking
the moment of transition
the place between.
(c) Helen Lowe
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First Published in Blackmail Press, “Crossed Cultures” Special Edition, 18 April 2008
Re-published, Crest to Crest: Impressions of Canterbury Prose & Poetry, Ed. Karen Zelas, Wily Publications, 2009
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i) Ti Kouka—the Maori name for the NZ ‘cabbage tree’; scientific name Cordyline Australis
ii) Taiaha—a Maori stabbing spear, used now in ceremonies of greeting and challenge
iii) The Maori name for the Pacific ocean is Te Moananui a Kiwa, ‘the great ocean of Kiwa’, a mythic voyager
Ti is also ekphrastic poem that I wrote in response to the following print by Diana Adams, that I was given some years ago. To find out more about the artist, click on:
Diana Adams
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Recently I’ve been featuring poems that are broadly themed around “the sea”, which I’ve realised encompasses quite a few of my own works. So over the next few weeks, as we head into the Christmas-New Year holiday season, I’ll be reprising the poems, directly or indirectly focused on or around “the sea”, that I’ve featured on the blog over the past (almost) six years. I hope you, as readers, may enjoy them again a second time around. 🙂
Prior ‘Sea’ Poems include:
“Dover Beach” (Excerpt) by Matthew Arnold
“Breathing You In” by David Gregory
“We are more than half water” by Helen Rickerby
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part 1 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“The Seafarer” Excerpt from the Anglo Saxon poem (Anonymous)
Two Short Poems by Bernadette Hall
“The woman who swims with jellyfish” by Janice Freegard
“the rough sea” — a haiku by Matsuo Bashō