Delighted that my poem ‘The New Students’ is up on ‘Love in the Time of Covid: A Chronicle of a Pandemic’, a site curated by Witi Ihimaera and Michelle Elvy. The site is a cornucopia of photography, poetry, fiction, video and art, with contributors from around the globe.
A Recital of Poems 17 – Agnes Marton, Janis Freegard, Robert E Petras, Craig Santos Perez, James Hall
image by Agnes Marton
Every Mask Goes Back To The Jaguar by Agnes Marton
A carving: a man disguised as a jaguar?
A jaguar in the process of becoming a man?
Jaguar. Raw material for tone trophies.
Jaguar. Model human warrior.
Jaguar. Mythic lover.
Scroll Jaguar, Bird Jaguar, Moon Jaguar.
Dualistic weapons: claws or fangs.
Prominent nasal bridge, large nostrils.
Jaguar. A less-than-human god.
The New Students by Janis Freegard
1.
It begins with a tiny buttercup
that’s forced its yellow face through
a crack in the concrete steps,
continues when we pause our walk
for a fluffed-up tūī clicking and shouting
from a tarata tree.
2.
Our lessons involve careful distancing,
neighbourly smiles.
A flitter of red admirals
gathers near the macrocarpa stand,
a hefty kererū heads home.
We stop to pat a tortoiseshell.
3.
So many paths we’ve never been down,
monuments we didn’t know were there.
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