pocket watch

pocket watch

With acknowledgements to nzbirdsonline.org.nz for use of this image

the afternoon of
christmas eve
i see you’re wet
Mr. Magpie
under the
twisted branches
of that low tree
on the brink of
the mown gulley
you’re looking
grumpy
out of sorts
a ‘scrooge’ of sorts
collecting this
and that
perhaps

kawhia

kawhia

this afternoon
of low-tide cloud
where the shoreline
smooths out for the harbour’s’
run into the sea that rides in
roughshod over it in
swell and surf
i was looking
for that other summer
washing my hands
from a dig into mud to
see if those cockles you
gathered in bucketfuls
were still about
was washing my hands
in the sea and the waves