“Orison” — For NZ Poetry Month (Belated)
I was intending to get a post in for NZ Poetry Month, which was August, and realise it has swooped on by me with nary a poetry post to show for it.
And then I thought, well isn’t every month Poetry Month, for a poet, and every day, Poetry Day?
So in that spirit, I am posting a poem for you today. I’ve chosen one that’s in the spirit of Inside the Writing Life.
The writer at the centre of the poem is Katherine Mansfield, who is among NZ’s most renowned authors internationally.
Although I’ve featured it before as part of the Tuesday Poem community, I hope you’ll enjoy it again today:
Orison
~ a Meditation on Katherine Mansfield,
in the south of France
A bell calls on sleepy air
resonant
with late afternoon
sheep click & clack
over cobbles
the smell of fleece
hangs on the hour
an olive tree taps
against glass –
through twig and leaf
there is sea, bright
beneath a blaze of sky
the page on the desk
is blank, the pen
a burden to the hand –
she lifts it
draws in breath
…………..will again
until the final line
.
© Helen Lowe
~ first published in Takahe 62, 2007