Hunting And Gathering



I left the polished gallery

and looked to the winter hills

from their severe domain

heard art devoured

keen the spectrum of blue



ears shut mouth in fingers

I walked above bones

buried in earth

the voracious British thieved



I would never transcend grief

in that blighted city

not even in higher heels

but in the alley where I toyed

I found a playing card

the jolly three of hearts

I gave to a livid wound



back home in the bush

a tui rasped as I filed the notes

my body couldn't bear

and that night the woman

in the moon said the tyranny

of colonisation plays

on every frequency



a cacophony of grief

is love at its fiercest

denied too long

her voice was lighting

in mid air conversations

often  burn




Leslie McKay writes haiku and prose poetry and her work is published in anthologies and journals on and off line. In 2016 she won the Caselberg International Poetry Prize. Originally from Christchurch, she has lived in the Maruia Valley a rich vein of lyricism, since the earthquakes.