Sue Baker Wilson

Sue Baker Wilson lives in a small coastal village where she most likes to garden in her pyjamas, follow the winter sun from window to window to snatch little sun kisses and from a bank overlooking the sea listen to music. She enjoys dabbling in digital art and photography, surrounding her world in colours of

orange and vibrant pink and playing with halogen coloured nightscapes.

Encouraged by friends to write, poetry has become a way of interpreting her

world.

Laying claim

One spring day, close to the equinox

pale moon held in daylit sky

orca came, 17 of the remaining 200

sailing through harbour's entrance

Ancestral feeding ground

Dark lines of imported pine

stood watchful guard

where native pingao

cling to sand dune

Tall dorsal fins, five in a row

black primeval triangles

navigate past

Silent, blue-grey mountains

wrap sea depths

Together

a perfect balance of Ancients

oblivious to:

Council in chamber

keen to catch fishermen's vote

planning marina

as orca power surge

cross harbour's narrowest point

Competing cash strapped

whale-saving groups

bickering 'caring' organisations

imploding

manuhiri pakeha, the Crown

up and down the nation

at hui

debate 'ownership'

of seabed & shore

An age before

Te Hokioi, descendant of the star Rehua

largest, most powerful mountain eagle

the world has ever known

could not soar, yet

still claimed Aotearoa airspace

till Polynesian colonisation reshaped the land

Wind and clouds came

Black feathered Hokioi, tinged with colour

head of red

into the heavens

Disappeared

Leaving:

rock drawings

skeletons carefully reconstructed

National museums

What have we learned

Persistence of memory

Rock tumbled entrance

guards forgotten cave

bleached rat skull

A warning

Broken blue china

pierces debris

layers of invading 'civilization' & 'culture'

smother your existence

Yet, you are there still

on Sentinel Rock

eyes cast over the horizon

to islands pointing high

Layers of cloud shroud time

catch dreams

wind carrying waiata

voices, welcome me home

I feel your mouth open

words slip in

breath a life of their own

Your taste on my lips

spirit to spirit

shared life force

No time, no space

no barriers

One

waiata-song

New Beginnings

One hot summer's day

beneath sheltering trees at beach edge

we lay on crushed eucalyptus leaves

Tender hands smoothed fragrant skin

Our universe sighed

Soft warm rain fell

blanketing our abandonment

as lovers we created our own flying space

Surf pounding on green edged shores

became a distant roar

Time was pulled into our slipstream

and in your eyes I became beautiful once again

That next day I loosened my hair

let the wind play its length

skin bathed as I sang

to the morning sun

Honoured the new day

At Listening Point twelve dolphins

spoke of water funnel wisps

drawing sea to sky

Water and light embraced

warmed a water-worn stone

The earth laughed in flowers

and at last I smiled with it

When

When did writing poetry

become an exercise for mind games

and you the scribble pad for emotion

Teetering on the edge

I prostituted feelings

to play stilted scrabble

When did exploration of self

expressions of love

become yet another wall

Pages of hieroglyphics

Judas soul still wandering

Evolution

It seemed

our universe was an expanding realm

Sandy water licked our souls

as lovers we wept salty tears

Yet our evolving story of creation

was only playing itself out

A luminescent explosion of cosmic gas

became a dying star

leaving only a waning ember

a nondescript white dot in the cosmos

And I, dusty debris

clawing to find the meaning of life

Home Kill

Prime dairy beef

slipped and fell, unable to walk

unceremoniously carted from the butchers

skinned, gutted, raw flesh exposed

on the back of a white tip truck

My brothers and I sharpened knives

steeled blade edge cutting sharp

Our dogs, happy benefactors of a casualty cow

bounced around us, eyes wide

appealing for titbits, sliced and carved

fought over a bone tossed to one side

All the while, we dissected

family members, normally culled

from conversation

Cousin Bob, caretaker to estranged Grandmother

milked her estate dry

Aunty May, pain spanning barren years

Mother had long stopped talking about her

Pieces of meat, hacked and packed

the waste, pared bones, some connective tissue

dumped down a deep offal hole

out of sight

lid replaced

Matakite

From a place in the future, I dream

Buffeted by wind, long hair

storm swept kelp

I stand strong on Sentinel Rock

Defying ocean wave, defying wind

Defying time

From the beginning, from the ending

From a great darkness, you have stood

Watching the same waters, we watch together now

Waters once paddled by my ancestors

Together

We are an island amongst

a galaxy of starfish

Te Kapu-Rangi, Arawa chief's daughter

Great, great grandmother

You saved by ruse, your own people

Once, you were a bright star of Matariki

From this place, I hear you call

Nau mai Haere mai,

Haere Haere

Matakite - seer, second sight, prophecy, intuition

Matariki - the Pleiades, legend has that the stars shine because of the doings of a great person on earth, and that when that person dies, the star that represents him or her goes out.

Nau mai - welcome

Haere mai - welcome, come here

Haere, Haere - come on, come here