A Poem for the Holiday: “We Children” by Janine Sowerby
we children
we children
when the days stretched
over the horizon, sprang
from our sleeping bags, threw
on our summer uniform, left
mum and dad dreaming, ran
barefoot through the bush, the river,
to the beach
we children
popped washed up blue
bottles, chased cantankerous
crabs, rescued stubborn sea
creatures from rock pools, buried
each other below sand castles, built
forts manned by katipos, cooked ourselves
in the sun
we children
got seaweed in our hair, sand
in our bum cracks, stranded
by the tide, wrestled the ball
from everyone’s Dad, rang
rings around them, stained our clothes
green, looked forward to doing it
all again tomorrow
now brother
you live over the horizon
and I no longer swim
in the sea
.
© Janine Sowerby
First published in The Press
Reproduced here with permission.
Note: Katipo(s) are a native NZ spider, often found in driftwood on beaches; they are also NZ's only naturally occurring poisonous spider (we've gained a few imports of recent years.)
—
This is one of my favourite NZ summer holiday poems, which captures both the quintessential Christmas-New Year holiday but also a wonderful nostalgia for the holidays of childhood past, seen through the bitter sweetness of adult recollection. Janine Sowerby is a friend and fellow poet and writer, working across a range of media.