Rae Pater
New Zealand
I am a New Zealand poet and have been writing seriously for 2 years now, I have three children and a dog called Bob
I have works published by Blackmail Press, WORDSPACE, MiPo, Ella, Lotus Blooms, Peshekee River Journel and Tryst, in three print anthologies and The Christchurch Press.
I am currently to be found posting and workshopping online at Salty Poetry Forum.
Feathers
i
My mother has become a baby bird
her bones hollow
ready for flight
I gather her into my arms and pray,
ask the great eagle
for feathers
to weave her a cloak
so that she will soar.
ii
her talons rake my heart
the grey lines hold seeds of loss
grow a flower of emptiness
that sheds petal moments
we might have shared
casts off memories like pollen
lost in a low wind
iii
essence ascends lightly
spirals in streams of rose gold
winding through fields
they expand and disperse
like feathers
into the sky.
Fortunes Palm
I follow the lines of your hand,
and learn your legend.
Clean curves polished smooth.
Nightingale feathers across your palm,
a silver spray of grooves.
Path to the future, a gull on the wing,
the past intriguingly stretches thin.
The loving line, a wanderers trail
of frequent stops, with a tight sail.
I kiss the sleeping shadowed palm
run a slow tongue down each finger
take the tips between my lips.
Your hand lights up like bevelled glass
as the sun catches my wake
and sings the nightingale into flight
a promise of music breathed in night.
Your fingers interwined through mine
create a hollow centre
pieces of us fly away
as we come together.
The Things I Love About You
It's not the copper-gold flowers
in eyes that see mine,
but the leaves of kindness
drifting in each petal.
Not feathers whispered
on my skin, sliding
a spiral to my cochlea,
but the snowy owls
that nest in your words.
Not the taut flex of biceps,
perfectly honed,
but the silken child
sheltered behind.
Not that men jump
at your command.
Rather, twenty long years
of ten hour days
the same, same,
same,
dancing for gold.
