reflection

reflection
for N. in memoriam
september 2011

Seeing you framed in another face, another life, safe in that elsewhere

caught
out
times
i see
a face
and see
you
as you
were
fixed into
another
life
completely

river nurse

river nurse
for Claudia, Bethie and all the nurses in
whose care we come & go

she had
lifted them
into coming
the wet
the just
learning
to breathe
she had
seen them
off the old
the broken

blood lines

blood lines
dedicated to my maternal grandfather ‘Pop’ Rumble,
my uncle and nephew
december 2014

‘The Raurimu Spiral is a single-track railway spiral, starting with a horseshoe curve, overcoming a 139-metre (456 ft) height difference, in the central North Island of New Zealand, on the North Island Main Trunk railway between Wellington and Auckland. A  notable feat of civil engineering, having been called an “engineering masterpiece”… and is designated a significant engineering heritage site’. From Wikipedia

3 generations
worked on the rails
the grandfather drove
steam locomotives
down those tracks
that were heavy
labour through
bush, round spur
and spiral
the son,
the grandson too
stayed on the
straight and narrow