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