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Dorothy Howie

New Zealand

Tui Taonga 1-5 Penny Howard

Dorothy Howie lives in Auckland and is an emerging poet, with poems published in Poetry New Zealand and other New Zealand journals. She also researches and writes on the teaching of thinking.

Lunacy

Riemke Ensing : ‘After Loss’

‘In the moon

touching the lamp.’

Your own personal madness,

longing for the moon –

impeccable behaviour,

improbably perfect men.

Only days after you died

a full moon rose

above the slivered harbour,

ten per cent bigger, value added.

So I think of you as sitting in the moon,

my own personal myth,

your slim straight back, elegant ankle swinging,

smiling down and admonishing us –

‘get your act together!’

Ruru*

The morepork’s mournful cry

in the lonely nights

denoting your death.

Its two part cry

keening an untied knot

yet guardian and shelter.

The Magellan clouds, interacting,

small and large, each so different,

driving star formation in their galaxies.

* Williams’ Maori dictionary gives the following meanings for ‘ruru’ :

- owl/morepork

- knot

- affording shelter

- ‘whakaruru-hau’, the Magellan Clouds.

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