HOLLY JANE EWENS

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Sestina at Little Akaloa

We sat so still
the folds showed in the plain
macrocarpa; a tree carved
by weather and by the same salt wind that dried our mouths.
Its falling imminent. A wizened keel above the stone
bench. Cracking was due. God only knew when.

Your shoulders grew prickly as the fir when
we drove those curly roads to the lookout. Still,
I liked watching you swell as a rally driver hammering the stone
out behind the wheels, gravel spitting at the empty plains.
We were following the arching mouth
of the sea. The tree so near death, you said, it was just waiting to be carved.

Inside the church, pews were cut on the cross. Struts carved
from the ribs of taniwha; Blessed are the Pure in Heart when
Rangi and Patrick touched mouths
and briefly noses. Where they distilled
and shared scotch, writ For They Shall See plainly
on the ceiling. The material of trees; sheltered by stone.

You were an artist who constructed his own stones
from geometric moulds. Carving
into them dates, oracles from early books, the plain
of Erewhon beached beyond the mountains. When
his concrete waka was cast, when it was still
and evenly sunk, rivers the world over drew open their mouths.

All night I watched your lips mouth
the mute songs of your grandmother (the reddest stone)
she, who taught you to nurse eternal sleep, the still
of night, the linen handkerchief – Ruby carved
through stencilled reeds, when
you gave me her skirt the bloodline was plain.

Ready with your chisel, your craftsman’s plane
to sand the anagrams back nowhere in the mouth.
When limbs snap and roots are disinterred, when
you can run the creased finger of my hollows: erect four stone
walls for the remains. From my bone carve
a whistle to command these waters still.

Carve me without filigree, carve me plain
and when you bring my bone to your mouth
may the stone burr still.