scoria flower muse

scoria flower muse:
36 views near & far of rangitoto
inspired by Hokusai’s ’36 Views of Fuji’ series of woodcuts

Photo by Shuk Kei Chan

I.

through
the rain
a shadow
of itself
standing
off-shore

rangitoto
somewhere
else in
sun

II.

that slow
inhale
to
the peak
held double
exhale to
the sea

III.

rain cloud
lifted neat
along its
flanks

came down
again on sea

IV.

out in the sun
above the sea’s
jangle of
light

Lady of the Tides

Lady of the Tides

Acknowledgements to ‘The Straits Times’ for use of this image.

The grain of wood in those slats of the venetian blinds
with sun and shadow from them chopped along her sleeve,
an intimate unfamiliarity, for the Venice outside she had
never been, having just arrived at her pensione dizzy
with sleep from an all night journey; the glass stopper
of her perfume bottle not put back shattering light around it
on the sheet of drawing paper she wished for friends to
float a pencilled gondola upon , a ‘wish you were here’ sketch,
having picked up the knack of blurring and filling spaces with
suggestion in childhood, that poisoned glade of hers.

The bundle of her washing, clothes anonymous with the touch
of other travellers brushed by on the way, she had dropped as
the lady owner pointed out just outside the door, and she told