hourglass

hourglass
august 2012, bucklands beach
re-edited dec 2022

A post-Weathercat Production shot of ripples on the estuary, where it all started

in
time’s
mirror
it seems
the door is
really ajar, and
just by being
thinner than the
gap of dark
you could
slip back into
those evenings,
the dab and smear
of lights along
leaves of an
overgrown hedge,
as always it was,
concrete steps the
colour of sand, a
white railing,
gumboots stood at

the talking bird

the talking bird
to Jack Le Baige
october 1989
edited december 2022

Maccaw parrot, with acknowledgements to Benjamint444 on commons.wikipedia.org for use of this image.

for years
you told the story
we’d already taken
well to heart,
fed like a cat
under the table
with our imaginings.

greymouth,
the tasman dark
with rain, the swell
skittering along
the shore.
the river mouth
could’ve been the
night you’d just
woken from.

you were running
for school
in the shower’s
edge, the drops
gaining heavier,

in sunlight

in sunlight
november 2022

‘Dostoevsky in St Petersburg’ by Russian artist by Ilya Glazunov, with acknowledgements to the site st-petersburg.com from where this image was sourced.

his
name
swept off
city streets
to the
gutter,
in
distant
snows
east
dostoevsky
would have
fed the
sparrows,
sparingly
eaten
his bread
that they
might know
no hunger
a while,
chirping
in sun at
the fumble
of his ragged
mittens

Copyright © 2022 Peter Le Baige.  All Rights Reserved

Click on the link above to hear a reading of the poem.  The accompanying music is from the third movement (Ben moderato: Recitativo-Fantasia) of The Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major by Cesar Frank, performed here by Renaud Capuçon (violin) & Martha Argerich (piano).