Back in the water!

After nearly 18 months of the boat on the hard stand, today it went back in the water.  The kind of feeling you want to keep in your handbag, ready for emergencies.  Two years ago flooded back into my consciousness - a summer sprinkled with happy boating memories (see photos).  The two years since seeming drowned in challenges, yet we're afloat again and looking forward to coasting through another beautiful summer.  Thank you, Alan, for your hard work.

The forklifts work the port like ants, seeming to scurry to and from the Mount.  Viewing the Mount across the harbour while being rocked gently in the arms of the sea, I realise how much I have missed this perspective.  I drink in the moment.  My shoulders must have dropped at least an inch.  The mood seems to be spontaneously caught by the girls.  They settle down on the deck and proceed to pause pensively, looking out over the water, pencil poised over paper ready to catch their musings.

Boat berthed, we are graced with a performance of their creativity - Natalia has written a poem and Jasmine dances a jig whilst singing "Mr. Sea, Mr. Sea, Mr. Sea".

Such moments deserve recording.  Jasmine wrote her poem when we got back home.

 

Sailing on Mister Sea Poem

 

It is nice to see the sea

waving in farewell

as I sail across

Mr. Sea.

Boat goes bumping,

wind goes howling,

darkness falls.

A morning of fun awaits me.

It's morning!

I jump out of my PJs,

it's time to go fishing.

Next minute

a beauty king fish strangles

from my line.

Next minute

we're in the harbour

it's time to get out.

I wave farewell to the sea.

The sea waves back.

Next minute

I'm scampering on hot sand

in the hot morning heat.

 

NATALIA McQUARTERS, 8 yrs old.

 

 

 

Mr. Sea

I am on the sea... hooray!

The underwater world

whizzing by.

The fish jumping.

The water splashing.

The next morning

I jump out of bed.

I go to the side

of the boat and jump

out of my PJs.

We're at London!

JASMINE McQUARTERS, 6 yrs old.

 

 

SOME OF OUR MEMORIES FROM THAT SUMMER...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beckoning

The dazzling blue-gold day

reaches down from far, far away

between the forbidding high-rises

amongst the shades of grey.

The warm, slim finger of light

searches the streets still cold with night,

over the heads of down-turned eyes

to find my shoulder – tap, tap, tap...

The down-turned eyes shoot from side to side

around the back but not up high

“Who are you, stranger, where are you?”, say I,

brushing a light speck from my shoulder.

The long blue fingers of warmth

then run to play hide and seek,

shout "Boo!" like playful children
as I turn the corner, blind.

Surrounded by fun-loving laughter of sun

I finally say, “I know you, my friend

for you are the one, who reminds me to stray

far, far away from the dull, dark grey,

into the fields and trees of green,

to drink the fragrances, smell the stream,

yes, you are the one who reminds me to stay

far, far from the blues in a golden day”.

BY JEANETTE JONES

 

Butterflies

Nature's coloured beauty on double wings,
from self-imposed chrysalis
through struggling transformation
it stretches to explore its world.

Free flight on the wings of the wind.
Immaturity believes in the capture
of the creature, in the perfect picture,
and so chases in awed rapture.

Once immature, others have learnt
that what hands can't hold
can be held in the heart
so beauty and butterfly never part.

BY JEANETTE JONES

This Currently Small Thing With No Working Title

With youthful passion

I scattered my heart out, raw,

on the pages of the first volume,

an offering to appease

those who wanted me,

understandable, in one piece.

Actors for my next volume?

Life lands on these pages,

like a reality show, requiring

most of all, a brave voice,

keen observation, thoughtful –

Kim Hill perhaps my choice.

 

“Verbal snapshots of a female Kiwi”

could bring agencies clamouring.

Yeah, right. 

The tui's wings beat in my ears,

my flightless self accepts

the first draft could take years.

I am far from comfortable

in this blinding spotlight,

revealing my blind spot.

It is difficult to find,

in the comfort of my night,

others of my kind.

My senses sustain me,

as I happily poke the dirt,

my vulnerability can reflect

yours in the glass

if you are still long enough

to allow me to pass.

BY JEANETTE JONES

The above poem is my playful (or evasive?) response to the following questions:

1. What's the working title for your book?
2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
3. What category does your book fall under?
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
8. What other books would you compare this to in your genre?
9. What inspired you to write this book?
10. What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

My book?  Did someone say I was writing a book?  AAARRGH!

 

Dawn Picken, a writer and Mum living in Mount Maunganui who I met at this year's Writers' Retreat, has tagged me and four others to answer these questions in her recent blog titled "The Next Big Thing". I want to bags a copy of Marcel Currin's next collection of poetry on fatherhood and family life - see his response to "The Next Big Thing" nomination here.  Dawn and Marcel would be my first two nominations for "The Next Big Thing" - a kind of (as Marcel puts it) "pay-it-forward online game in which writers nominate other writers as the next big thing".  Yes, I am a fledgling with few contacts.  So 50% of my nominations consist of a tagback and a retag.  :-)

 

The other 50% of my nominations do not have a blog and are not members of Facebook (as far as I know), which makes the nomination a little more difficult for them to respond to, but does not necessarily reflect their potential of being "The Next Big Thing":

Warren Parkinson - just launched his book "101 Hot Tips for Health and Happiness" - Warren, really enjoyed the first one - have you got another one in the making?

Elizabeth Jones - a woman who has my admiration for her life experience and wisdom, Elizabeth is planning to write a book about her father's experiences in World War I. 

(If they have no other publishing medium, I may publish their response here as part of a future blog).

Breast Friends

I take these friends for granted.

 

With me since birth yet

unaware of them for years,

source of embarrassment

while I get used to their ways.

Source of concern.

I am scared of disease.

Source of pleasure

as maturity overcomes me,

source of pain

as child and infection bite.

Source of acceptance

- they shape part of me.

 

I find myself dreaming

as I stand under shower stream

cupping one in each hand.

"It was like losing a good friend",

she said, of cancer,

that took off with

one of hers.

More like losing a family member,

I think, that's how

much I take them

for granted.

 

BY JEANETTE JONES

 

Underground Impressions

Scream of metal on metal,
 

curved track, crowded,

 

enclosed station.

Stale, industrial air makes

nasal excretions black,

aching head pound.

Face shocked,

she double-checks, looks away,

reacts to the smile I give her.

Man playing tube guitar,

asking for small donations,

greeted with stony faces.

Ad encouraging us to

“Do what no-one else does on the tube – talk!”

advertises mobile phones...

This is the London underground.

This is the weekly grind.

This is life, people!

So give us a smile

 

once in a while.

I'll try to smile back.

BY JEANETTE JONES

Changeable Rabbit

My poetry used to be a cave where I would go alone whenever inspiration or emotion urged me to purge my brain and heart. Peering through the dark, I would write furiously on the walls, then tiptoe out and re-stack the rocks at the entrance. I would occasionally let others in (after frisking them at the entrance in case they tried any surreptitious scratching of my works of art). Three weeks ago my cave was bombed. Amazingly, all the writings were more or less recovered. But the sun highlighted a whole lot of improvements I could make. I've scratched a lot of them in one way or another, and no doubt the weather will take its toll. I've even started searching out other people's scratchings...

Well, I made it!  One blog post per day, for ten days, of the poems I wrote in Ohope at the beginning of October (when the bomb struck).  No matter if no-one is listening, reading, watching this space, it will continue, though maybe not at the same pace.  :-)

The last night we had in Ohope, we seven writers (we could call ourselves that for the duration of the week at least!) braved the churning metropolis that is the heart of Ohope and took ourselves out for dinner to what seemed to be the one and only open eaterie, Toi Toi Bar and Brasserie.

Thank you to Bay of Plenty Polytechnic for giving me the opportunity to attend the Writers' Retreat.


Changeable Rabbit

We always gave thanks for what we were given
so I, let's say, at eight
just ate

One of my Mum's delicious stews
I would have asked for more
I'm sure

Until one of us thought to ask aloud
"It tastes a bit different, what is it?"
It's rabbit.

Cries and shrieks and exclamations,
the smirk on my father's face
disgraced him.

Yet then I travelled round the world,
ate snails, frog's legs, curries,
unqueried

And now I find myself in Ohope
trying sweet and sour... rabbit
- I love it!


BY JEANETTE JONES

 

Relationship Tunes

What shall we play?

Perhaps this one?
Years of delight
now neglected.
Everyday flow
now rifted, awkward,
stilted.
Renewable rhythm?
I ask into silence.

Or this one.
I jump at the chance,
levitate in a heaven
of enthralling nuance,
unfolding delight.
I engage, lose myself,
find myself
transformed.

Others, still
repertoire favourites,
rocking-chair rhythms,
well-known comforts
- always a pleasure.

I played my repertoire tonight.
Surprise, sadness.
Those pieces unpractised,
unfeatured.


BY JEANETTE JONES

Let me out

Concrete curbs
I follow, shrinking to fit
the hollow tunnel made by
the battery of towers
from which this city
defends its right to be.

I hide inside
my coat, armoured
against the mash of bodies
clumped together yet
strictly untouched.

Release me from this quarantine.

Let the sun take off my coat
the breeze scatter my dead leaves
the trees entice my child to play
the ocean shock away the grey.


BY JEANETTE JONES

Lambing Season

My children love hearing stories about me when I was their age.  Now I finally feel that I'm doing this moment justice in the re-telling.

In an exercise also from "Writing Poetry" by Michelle Boisseau and Robert Wallace, my task was to consider William Stafford's "Traveling Through the Dark" and then write a poem of similar length and stanza form about a similar subject in which a speaker comes upon an animal unexpectedly, looks closely at it and reacts in some way.

I was obviously still in memory mode...

Lambing Season

Bumping along in the jeep, we find a ewe
cast by the fence in the bottom paddock.
My heartbeat quickens as the jeep slows up,
my Dad assessing the level of need.

"Stay here 'til I say," he murmurs and eases
himself out and alongside her body he probes
her protruding tummy and she, eyes wide,
nostrils flaring, trusting, nevertheless, his help.

His hand silently motions, my breath exhales
like a released balloon as I tumble, stumble,
sink down beside him to watch, I think,
a miracle delivered - I have seen this before.

What?  Put my hand in?  But I can't, I haven't -
I look up to a confident, brown twinkle,
then my gaze falls through the paddock to the blood.
Her belly, my chest, rising, falling.

I watch my arm disappear inside her.
When I next look, twin lambs are outside her.


BY JEANETTE JONES

The Big Swing

In that first week of October 2012, a few other memories wandered into my consciousness and willingly leapt onto the page.

In 2008, my Mum and some of my sisters did a nostalgia trip to the farm we grew up on.  Twenty odd years takes its toll.  No, of course I'm not talking about me!  I couldn't believe the Big Swing was gone.  So I crayoned it back in.

The Big Swing

I run like a fairy stripped of wings,
bare feet lifting off gravel
before the sharpness penetrates,
gravity thwarting the desire to fly.
I leap to refreshing grass
although still hopping
round hiding cowpats.
I arrive at the Big Swing.

Farm vista laid out before me,
dogs, hopeful, in kennels below me,
a warm breeze circles up the hill.
Round the front, I grab the sides,
thick slab of wood bumps down my spine
as I tiptoe backwards up the hill
then reach, grab, jump
- and soar.

Tummy left behind, a tail streaming,
rippling with laughter, catching up
then lost again, I cling for precious life,
celebrate with winged fairies.
Then letting arms and legs relax
I let the lull of fore and aft
release me from the daily graft.


BY JEANETTE JONES

Momentary memories

Momentary memories.  Isn't it precious that we can be taken back to our memories at any time and relive the details?  And share them.

Think back  to where you lived ten years ago.  Look out your favourite window there.  What do you see?  What season is it?  Perhaps it's raining.  What does it smell like?  What do you hear?  Are you wearing shoes?  Close your eyes and for five minutes look out that window. 

For me, this poem emerged.

May Street, 2003

I sink into my second-hand couch,
bare feet curled under for comfort and warmth
considering the concrete square of my backyard.

Last autumn's litters of leaves
lurk around pots of greenery
reaching out thirsty tongues
to suck up the nourishment
of a spring shower.

Voices now, loud and urgent.
Car doors click and slam.
Motor - blub, blub, blub,
disturbs my reverie,
then dies a lingering death.

I sink back into the jazzy waft
of my neighbour's music,
smile as my kitten paw-boxes
a dance across the square
after an invisible butterfly.


Now look out another window in some other year.  It hasn't rained for weeks.  Close your eyes, look, write.

Te Waerenga Road, 1978

Huddled beside the old radiogram
close enough that my Mum
doesn't get annoyed by the noise,
I listen to my favourite record story.

No longer here in spirit
my ears hear somewhere
a droning, occasionally coughing,
spluttering
into silence.
Then again, the drone...

I am with the happy prince
and the shivering swallow.
The sun pouring itself
through the windowpane
does not warm me up at all.

Bang! My head jerks to
my bikini-topped, shorts-
clad, gumboot-wearing
older sister
pushing the lawn-mower.

She smiles and shouts something
through the thunder right under
the picture window, waves,
and is gone.

I stop the record.
Skip out to the swing.


BY JEANETTE JONES

 

The above two exercises were taken from "Writing Poems" by Michelle Boisseau and Robert Wallace

Ebb and Flow

One of the things I have loved since the retreat is noticing that I'm noticing the little details, the softness of a six-year-old cheek, the depths in an eight-year-old's eyes, the number of white-noise producers we have in our kitchen, the effect of winds on tidal flats, the taste of silver in my mouth produced by too many coffees and not enough air.  My nose is still the insensitive lump it's always been but for the most part I am much more present to my senses. 

Amongst the home routine, my head is snatching at snippets of thoughts and conversation like getting bites on a fishing line.  The trick is always the hooking and landing - can I keep it on the line long enough to lift it out of the eddying waters and swing it with my pen to paper....

Ebb and Flow

My bottom warm, beginnings of numb
but life that flows from eyes and ears
must bypass fears, conceived ideas
to reach the page unstopped.

Beginnings of hunger rumble
as peaceful poems tumble,
long, slow sun-tendrils retreat
from toasty feet.


Dusty red kettle on the pot-belly
waits, whistle surrendered
to chimney, breathing the breeze
outside that trembles the buds,
shudders the leaves,
sways the branches of
pohutukawa, waving.

With sudden flourish it points
seaward where white caps give
a momentary reflection
of clouds,
scurrying, they beckon:
"You haven't been to see us
today." Wind and waves
ebb as life flows
through pen
to paper.


BY JEANETTE JONES

Fire Dance, Resurrected Minute

At the recent Bay of Plenty Polytechnic Ohope Writers' Retreat, seven of us stayed in two adjacent houses across the road from the beach.  Ours was an experienced Lockwood, with plenty of windows, comfy chairs and a good ol' potbelly at the heart of it.

It was one of those Lockwoods you feel is talking to you.  As it starts to feel the evening chill, it gives a groan and thanks you for the fire radiating from its heart.  At 4am, you are startled awake as it grunts in its sleep and shuns the cold.  As the sun starts to embrace it again the next morning, you hear the crack of the spine as a stretch puts all back into place.  "Another beautiful day," its says with a yawn.  It called to me somewhere between the four o'clock grunt and the nine o'clock stretch.  "There is writing to do and you only have one more day with me!"

I make the fire and a coffee while still in my pyjamas and bare feet.  I wrap myself in the crocheted comfort rug that has become attached to me over the week and pull up a sinky armchair.  I manage to finish my Morning Pages (three pages of non-stop-writing-no-matter-what) before getting lost in the flames.

Fire Dance

A lone dancer, of many limbs,
dressed in fine silk of ochre,
a quiet breeze moves her.

She leaves glowing threads
on the unmoved, dead
wood.

Her movements grow in intensity.
With conjuring arms she casts a spell
over wooden hearts wrapped
in her embrace until they
give up, soften, tear
apart to become the
warm bed for her
next subject.



Resurrected Minute

I watch the flames, colour of fox,
dance in the box.
They're hiding now.
I think of how
the wood I feed was dead before
and nothing more
until it meets
the fox's needs,
comes alive for this sweet time
of warmth and I'm
just blessed to sit,
enjoying it.


BY JEANETTE JONES

Sea Swirls

While we're on the topic of motherhood...

Sea Swirls

Distance and innocence belie the notion,
emotion, motion,
of motherhood.

First-time pregnancy sought
solace in the ocean's simultaneous
peace, restlessness,
moods inseparable.

Unity becomes duality,
salt stings.
Tentative fingers reach out,
test depths. 
Sea curls, croons around
rock edge.

Changeable though.  At times
fingers of rock find emptiness,
she's out
and they, exposed,
cry
when they think of her.

Later, whipped herself by winds
that cannot change the shape of rock,
she froths, foams, fumes,
sends herself crashing as she tries
to mould them into shape.

Mirror, mirror, of the sea,
tell me what you see
in me
today?


BY JEANETTE JONES

Mosaic Mum

Could someone please tell me what stars collided on or around 30 September 2012?

I turned 40.  And it appears that my inner constellation has completely rearranged itself.  To the naked eye the night sky of my life no doubt looks the same.

I still rush my girls out the door before 8:30am.  Still savour the fifteen minutes of MY music played as LOUD as I like on the work commute.  Still sit at my workdesk pushing paper.  Still fill myself up with too many coffees and come home to wash, cook, clean, worry.  Still try to ignore the wine calling to me from the fridge:  "I'm here - you don't really have to wait until the weekend!"

Yes, from a distance one would not notice the change.  But here I am, a self-confessed, fall-apart-if-I-don't, sleep addict, sitting directly under the heat pump, considering the family detritus around me with unusual detachment, barely noticing the clock pass midnight (for the second night running).  I scribble in the A5 Recycled 70% Notebook I've only known for a fortnight.  It has shared more intimate moments with me during that time than my husband has.  Many more.  It has given birth to nearly twenty poems.  Rescuing me from the embarrassing scenario of not having brought any writing paper to a writers' retreat, it offered itself to me like a sacrificial lamb.  The only one left in the facilitator's box of supplies.  Maybe it thus endeared itself to me.  I somehow had to repay the debt.

Ah, the imaginings.  Ridiculous personifications, farfetched analogies, stretched like a rubberband, nearly to breaking point...

I don't care.  I am writing.

Mosaic Mum

"What do you do?"  I hear, "Who are you?"  Twitch.
"A Mum at the moment."  Is that enough for you?
Silence.
"Have you had children?"  I turn it back with a smile,
determining the depths of understanding.

Myself, as this innocent piece of work,
crafted and decorated with care.

A sliding doors moment
before, intentional or not,
oops! Knocked.  Dropped.

A lifetime of patience (or not)
to fit back the pieces of me,
a work of art
in progress.


BY JEANETTE JONES

Beach Holiday & Pohutukawa Blessing

I so prefer summer drenching me with sweat than the whipping these October winds are giving me!

My perfect introduction to summer was the Writers' Retreat in Ohope Beach at the beginning of this month, where I couldn't help but write some beach poems.  From the poems I wrote then, I have decided to post one or two a day for the next ten days as a kick start to my blog.  I was experimenting with different poetic techniques and forms, so:

• "Beach Holiday" is a five-stanza poem with a reducing number of lines in each stanza from five to one.  The aim was to make form and idea work well together.
• "Pohutukawa Blessing" was an exercise to write a blessing (or a curse) in a well-known form (in this case, limerick).

Beach Holiday

Head full of nothing, something,
everything to remember to take:
undies, toothbrush, clothes, pyjamas,
not enough washing done.  Dramas!
Can we fit everything in?

Settling to the rhythm of the open road,
audiobook tells us of Frog and Toad,
one asleep, two asleep, time for a chat,
suddenly remembering I forgot my hat.

Been a long time coming, yes, we're nearly there,
find the right number, yes, it must be here!
Pull up, tumble out, stretch the legs, look about.

Check it out!  Bed claim, bag dump, fridge food?
Togs on, towels out, locking up, we're out.

On the beach.  Swim.  Stretch.  Sigh.  Stop.


Pohutukawa Blessing

May your limbs always grow gnarly
Your green hues never lose their variety
May your shade be my haven
Your height be my heaven
Red kisses my holiday glory.

 

What special place in NZ do these two poems take you to?  Or did a summer memory just make you smile?  Perhaps write a poem about your experience and post it here!


BY JEANETTE JONES

 

Mr. Sea

Inspired tonight by Dawn Picken, who I had the pleasure of meeting at a recent Writers' Retreat, I finally create a blog.  Her blog post about the retreat took me back there, asking the questions, writing alone, yet not, and yes, finding solace in the ocean.

Mr. Sea

After I had run with

sharp-stone-hopping feet

across the grey strip

of rough-hewn concrete,

crossed the dune edge

of grass underpinning

bouquets of flowers

as if medal-winning

and looked out to see

Mr. Sea there for me

like he always would be

in my search for me,

after I'd walked

let my toes scuff the sand

let my nose smell the salt

let this man take my hand,

then,

again,

I breathed.

 

BY JEANETTE JONES