\na note of bird, full chorus done.
\nGrasses wear a soft embalm. Twilight
\ncould be ripped with engine roar
\nor the slam of a door, could be
\npre-earthquake crackling. At the window
\nseeing through then seeing the through<\/em>
\n\u2014 waved rippled glass
\nbubbled, a larger lozenge
\nyou press your eye to:
\nedges fur, earth and tree,
\nall the old familiar ground
\nmade queer. You live a moment of between
\nopened in a distraught glass. The glazier
\nleft a perfect tear.
\n.<\/span>
\n\u00a9 Rhian Gallagher
\n~ published in Shift<\/strong><\/em>, Auckland University Press, 2011<\/p>\n
Reproduced here with permission.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
Shift <\/strong><\/em>is divided into three parts: Shift, Butterfly<\/em>, and Shore<\/em>. To date, I have completed reading the first section, Shift<\/em>, which I feel deals with: place\u2014the shift between New Zealand and England and associated journeys; with time\u2014the shift between childhood and adulthood, experience and recollection; and family\u2014the subtleties and shift of the emotional currents that shape our lives.<\/p>\n I asked Rhian if I could feature Windowpane<\/em><\/strong> as my Tuesday Poem today because for me it has a strongly New Zealand feel, but also because of the deeply observational nature of the poem, and the way it captures that sense of experience and recollection, \u201cnow\u201d and—in the same moment— \u201cthen.\u201d<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Windowpane The cat rasps her claws on cabbage tree bark, a note of bird, full chorus done. Grasses wear a soft embalm. Twilight could be ripped with engine roar or the slam of a door, could be pre-earthquake crackling. At the window seeing through then seeing the through \u2014 waved rippled glass bubbled, a larger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8825"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8833,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8825\/revisions\/8833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Shift-208x300.jpg\" "\\"Shift\\"")
<\/a>On August 23, I featured Butterfly<\/em>, from Rhian Gallagher\u2019s new collection Shift<\/strong><\/em> (AUP) on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong><\/a>. Since then I have been slowly working my way through the collection, chiefly because these are not poems you zip through. Each one demands time, effort, thought\u2014and very often compels a swift return to re-read.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/TuesPoem.jpg\" "\\"TuesPoem\\"")
<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon<\/strong> in the sidebar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"