Bedroom on the Pavement

Lyttelton
.

Since they widened the road,

the house every night

takes a deep breath,

holds it and swells its walls

suitably enlarged

…………..under lamplight

as it edges onto the pavement.

 

Warns the stray dog not to dawdle

against its bright bedroom wall,

tells after-dark strollers

to cross the road

and settles into its alter ego,

preens a little, shakes out

its cream-painted skirting.

 

They say, in the town,

a strange lady-writer

once lived alone in its

…………..shadowy sadness.

As the twin chimneys reach up

windslapped from the harbour,

fingers of light define

…………..roofs and walls,

pointing to a strange star hanging

unnamed over the Bridle Path.
.

© Lorna Staveley Anker, 1914 – 2000

From The Judas Tree, edited by Bernadette Hall, Canterbury University Press, 2013

Reproduced here with permission

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About The Poem:

I just really like this poem, especially the way it speaks to Lyttelton-that-was — before the earthquakes which took quite a toll on this charming, steep-hilled, harbour & port-side town. Even without that though, I love the way the poem is embued with sense of place and the house has its own personality.  As for that “strange lady-writer” I hope it’s her star that shines above the Bridal Path, then and now…
.

About The Poet:

“LORNA STAVELEY ANKER was born in 1914. She used to joke that this was the cause of the First World War. In truth, the poems in this fine collection reveal her as New Zealand’s first woman war poet. There are poems here that arise from her childhood memories of Kaiser Bill. Three of her uncles died in France.

She was a ‘war widow’ in the Second World War, one of the civilian casualties who make up what is known as ‘the unsung generation’” — from The Judas Tree

Staveley Anker began her involvement with poetry in her fifties. … During her lifetime three books were published, two by her family and one through McBrearty and Associates, and her work was included in anthologies, including war anthologies and Canterbury-based publications.” — from Landfall Review Online, review by Mary Macpherson.

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