back to language of level sea, the old woman remonstrates 
the steps her neighbours, attired—you guess—in 
another young peasant girl's return from 
the open field in her hands proffered—what?—are 
violets, tipping a line of fingers, green 
stems beneath. Fields which, week after week after—January 
thru April—are green, yellow, cropped— 
The sky once a pavilion is wound, as 
down the hills 
march over roofs they come 



+


as a remnant of their desert days the sennas carry two 
little white pouches on the undersides of their throats—they come 
chasing up the field as Gloria claps her hands and calls 
each by name in her pitched voice—until the goats, sennas (worth 
thousands of dollars depending on their pedigree) & angoras—
for Gloria they are her life, her morning and night, as they 
come shaping their effulgent udders to be milked—



+


rimbaud's temptation to the world beyond the world (fowlie) and
thoughts that no one yet has. Scribble across 
and down the windshield and realise it is adhesive plastic over glass
that makes blue. She wrote 
Werther, and all were enchanted the resonance and I thought 'Werther' 
and the delightfully sounding Charlotte. I tell you, I was 
splendidly happy, I was, and saluted the fold of intellect. 
Notation, or the fabulous courseness of red bricks, tossed up 
onto the scaffold in lots of three—that she turns and 
looks aghast. It's a form of afflation, we're stuck with it. When it’s 
done I'll advise further, salubrious, maybe candid. You see it's 
just come short just by a bit…



 
WHITE 

to this very white; not as white but 
materially so, silken and placable and so constrained 
to a residue - for pieces and noughts of my hands and eyes. My 
toes turn its side also: jacaranda 
purple ruff and shadesprinkle across the grass this morning 
tresses at the Kerikeri rock-daubed inlet, 
where draughts (craft) in, by the riversedge, near gums clutter 
rocks & where Marsden then Kemp arrived, one settled, instructed 
what were natives, what Christianity needed or seemed, 
par excellence, a pear tree, 
remains (to walk beneath), one hundred sixty years 
& pears only slightly marred (tarnished), marked - tallies 
black and white sheep bleeding (bleating) & a blacksingleted man bent 
shearing their wool, he's perspiring, so it goes into the large brown sack,
supported there by the young Maori fellow, also a singlet. Slim, 
very white, your block of ice, freezing and brittle in the sunshine. With
serge avocado 
sweet plums that're tiny 
& overhang the white gateway and path near the stone steps and store 
we bought the delicious ice at 	iceat 

 

+


not a face orange under orange tree face  
of a book, partly partly not, 
partly grasped. Partly something pertinent. 
A burgundy jersey, mixed with 
triangles of green and black, pulled (y-a-n-k-e-d) in by another stitch
or band at the sleeves. Other sleeves
balloon as they flutter about, occupied
or chaotic, they plummet. Inhabit a corduroy jacket, 
an accordion, people with white sox watch intent the band deliver
other Kelvin Hair tunes, lean concierge. Prince's alphabetic street 
and drizzling letters with ribbons and "sassy" in 
the hair and grey shorts, skinny legs. 
Ribbons (from that line) in the hair, black, silken, frayed at the bottom
edge; he wears or is adorned (ordains) 
with a tie, carries a briefcase—tan leather with combinations—and 
the hair is parted that way or apart. 
She was to say, I think of you. 
But who knows what she thought of him, or only of him, he sang 
a brilliant tune. 
Other names come to or from espresso (or at that rate), so that the person
—no the spoon—seems almost to stand upright 
and manly. And all
Italians wear or are endowed with such smooth skin, like George St, 
even at Uni in the English tutor's room. The other 
on the phone put a boiling 
egg or pot before him. The brick buildings were 
red and almost for Marist Sisters. Or  
another Christian figure on the wooden cross at the chapel, a 
wooden kneeler, Louise Henderson's at Henderson which was harder 
to instil for the young ones not thinking in grey 
metal and contorted muscular with strained lines and downcast narrow head:
small square mosaic tiles, air-blue, 
comprise XIV stations that square attention, one starry Mary. 
It has to be a light touch for you to respond to, I guess.