Heritage Christchurch Summer Poets Competition
Sponsored by Heritage Christchurch and Interflora Pacific.
Taste and See by Mariana Isara won 1st prize in the Heritage Christchurch Summer Poets Competition, put on by the 2010 Festival of Flowers.
The poem was one of 18 that were read at the soirée on Tuesday 2 March at the Heritage Christchurch.
The poems were judged by James Norcliffe and Ruth Todd.
Mariana’s poem was inspired by the Taoist tree of life, a peach tree that every third millennium bears a single fruit that bestows immortality.
Here she uses the Japanese word 'ikebana' to describe the practice of floral arrangement because she was unable to find the name for the Chinese equivalent.
The peach tree is used in Chinese arrangements to symbolize longevity.
1st Prize
Taste and See by Mariana Isara
I am verdant and fragrant
with morning. Mouth
wide I raise my scribbly
limbs and sing:
Be the sunlight I have waited for
three thousand spring
times
women gathered
my branches
cut my ikebana limbs
bled in jade fish
vases. No blossoming. No
sweet tongued honey
bee. Oh, be a sky so blue,
so blue even the birds have
to look away. Be the full
bellied moon and the milky
way suckling. Be the fertile night
span. Be the chiming
dawns that call and swell
the node. Be the silky
bud fattening and the watery
highways. Be the flourish
of petal and a slight breeze
bringing the bee’s mouth, lacquered.
Be the one peach I carry. Be the three thousandth
year. Be the rouge, the soft ripe, the deep blush
the eye it catches. Be the warm &
hungry palm, the pick, the lips, the juicy song.
Be sweet eternity.
Runner-up
The Old Book by David Griffin
The old book tells of a tree
räkau
not to be felled, its heart
ngäkau
the heart of the world
tapu
in its branches nests life
te ao
Today the rivers do not know our waka
and the fish no longer swim freely
käinga
among the trees we’ve planted
kore
we have lost our way
tätou
Täne knows
ia
this tree standing silently
whakarongo
children of Rangi and Papa
we look for new worlds
tümanako
new stories to tell
whakapapa
among our roots
käkano
and branches
o nga rangi
life opens to us.
Highly Commended
Sweet Nicole by Sean Joyce
It was August I remember
I remember when I met her
She was perfect I remember
in her body, mind and soul
In September I remember
I remember her all over
She was perfect I remember
in her body, mind and soul
In October I remember
I remember her all over
We were lovers I remember
in body, mind and soul
In November I remember
I remember lies she told me
She was wilful I remember
Wilful to the nth degree
In December I remember
I remember it was over
Still, she's all that I remember
Love forever sweet Nicole
Highly Commended
Family Tree by Stephanie Grieve
My family's leaves are scattered north to south
forever ranging across tussock plains
and city-nestled harbours
but their bones are in the tree outside my window
pointing fingers at the past
from an anchorage of brown earth.
There's granny, telling me of war and rations
letters home from a husband
she hardly knew
and my aunt, you know, the artist
whose haunted faces in their frames
still torture our walls.
At night, the bones are restless
they shake and call and bicker
scrape the glass to make a point
I listen mostly, out of respect
but now and then I just
pull the pillow down over my head.
Highly Commended
Sanctuary by Karen Zelas
open your heart
to the tui’s sweet mimicry
the lick-flick of nectar-seeker perched in your crown
reach out
to the scuttle of rustle-bustle insects
a ladybird unready to head for her home
catch between fingers
moth-flit words whispered
vernacular diverse as the colours of dawn
offer your limbs
to the dusk of her skin
the mist of young eyes as she rests in your shade
cradle
her longing ear pressed to your bark
the echo of childhood held in your sap
sway
in the swell of nor’westerly fury
the gust of her noontide
don’t
stand in her way
Take This Building by Alys Titchener
take this building
and plant a tree inside
she will grow, don’t worry
all she needs is a kind thought to water
notice her roots are magic
like a divining rod, they seek the pulse of
earth, rich and poor, to give form
to that which shakes
see her arms spread open
receiving every day as her own child
see her tickle the currents and ideas
and with the simplest act, drop them
as the autumn sun takes the shortest path
see her dance
see her seek light
see her naked and exposed
baring now ancient wisdom
and scattering leaves like pearls
and pearls like the sage passes down wisdom
see her thickening trunk
pulsate the deep heart from the mother stone
a rose quart(caught) of beauty
a candle’s new flame
see her touch the sky
spreading the blue light from horizon to
horizon, and dappling in fun summers
see her protect all
see her adore the attention
knowing all the while, she does not exist
see her as ancient
as ever being
as invisible beyond worlds
and as large as life
in every dancing cell
see her as perfect
as your story
and your seed creation
see her as something you watered
with a spontaneous heart
and impulsive mind
see that
and declare:
I AM SHE
The Crowd Sits On by Barry Southam
Green grabs the eye, ears become
captive for those picnic seated
or standing in the Botanical Gardens
as an outdoor Sunday jazz concert
swings through an opening number.
The singer injects primal scream
into a blues, filtrating nodding trees
at full volume. Unconcerned,
a young Hillary climbs higher
up his own leafy Everest, beyond
parental radar turned off to tune in
to anguish from the makeshift stage.
Finally the climber pauses, maybe
some memory circuit kicking in
about Icarus, melting wax
and wings of folly. Slowly descends.
One watcher lets a sigh escape.
After the Interview by Emma Currie
You look like a librarian
His sweet tongue
Caustisized with aged cynicism sung
Lounging back
In his cream knitted cricket vest
Probably haunted the same
Local op shop racks as my get up
Whispering to each other
On coat hangers each time the door
Whistled open.
His dark black curls recently
Lopped to lobe length
His aqua eyes twinkling
Just a neighbourly exchange?
Clove cigarettes and coffee
Pearls of laughter from deep
Within the diaphragm
As I explain
I was aiming for a 20th century poet.
Trees of My Life Jo van den Bogaert
The sparrows pecked holes
in the speckled plums
of my childhood.
But still I indulged
digging away the holes
with fingernails,
juice running down my chin
and school blouse snagging
on the tree twigs.
At school
we lay under the contorted walnut tree,
school pinafores dampened
by shaded grass.
We etched our hearts into the trunk
as we watched waxed sandwich paper
chase sweaty rugby boys.
And then we arrived
at Poplar height,
too grown up to climb
and too busy to stop
and eat lunch
in the shade.
But sometimes in Summer,
I shed my shoes
and adult inhibitions
under a canopy of green
and permeate my soul
in the trees of life.
The Shell Gatherer by Elizabeth Robertson
Today, I stood in your footprint
hidden beneath a forgotten sandal
you once lost high up on that
bush-lined beach.
Your foot, longer than mine,
was a sore point with you.
The day you lost that sandal, you
had been gathering shells. When
we were young you had us make
shell lamps.
Girls, put the soft putty round a jar and
push the shells into it. The putty must be hidden.
When the jars were shell-studded
we painted them; sapphire blue, garnet red,
amber stones on bejewelled lamps.
On the beach at dusk, they glowed,
ancient light holders. The sea sighed,
the warm wind was gentle in its caress.
We ate our sanded sausages. Cooked
on a rack, we would pick them up. Hot to
hold, we’d always drop them. They were
wrapped in ketch-upped bread and eaten
greedily. So now I touch your sun baked
shoe and smile.
Willow by Sarah Garland
let’s go back
and peel thin whip branches
til our nails are filled with filmy sap
that smells a little like you bit a granny smith
and we can sit on the formica board
flexing under the weight of four kids
til you monkey your way to her top
and in a nor’west wind she’ll giggle
like a leafy-haired hippie post-toke
and we’ll poke
treasure into her knots for later
yeah
let’s go back bro
let’s go back to our willow
o willow the wisp
o willow so wistful
both now just a fistful
of ashes
to ashes
dust to dust
Tadpoles by Joan Barrett
A week ago you were a raft of jelly
sprinkled with black spots,
looking like a tipped-out
tapioca pudding you floated
on the surface of my pond.
Now you wriggle under new leaves of lily,
a hundred black threads, each
no longer than my little finger nail,
under the darting water-boatmen,
eating the spawn, eating each other,
your tiny pin-heads wiggling in birth-joy,
larvae quickening to life.
Those of you who survive
the cannibalism of brethren,
the jaws of fish, the gimlet beaks of crows,
anticipate the metamorphosis
packed in your dark, slim bodies.
Your heads will round, swell, tails
squirm you to quirky froghood.
Gills, haunched legs, webbed feet, grow to spring
you out of your puddle-pond to mature
in your tailless, amphibian Coming of Age.
Next year you will smell your way back,
rasping out your existence,
swollen and spongy, glistening,
to spread your transparent, black-spotted,
sticky tapioca-pudding-spawn,
and I shall hold a birthing-in-water party
to celebrate the perpetual continuity
of tadpoles.
Today is Today by Joan Barrett
surely a perfect day as I walk in sunshine that casts shadows,
houses reborn as triangles, oblongs on the road and over my feet;
black brilliance, they stir in this ever-changing world.
In gardens marigolds lift flat orange plates above the earth,
purple pansies crowd space with long-stemmed daffodils,
marmalade bushes flutter, camellia buds peep from leaf-cone cradles.
Best of all, better even than the long cloud drifting like a white shark
in a sea-sky, are the tall trees ahead, slim trunks, bare branches,
blown in the Tasman-travelled wind, swaying in parallel symmetry
into oblique angles slanting away from the wetlands
that stretch over marshes, woods, ponds to the far hills.
As I enter, Pukekos approach pulling grass with red claws,
lifting it into red beaks, blue-black bodies gleaming.
A white swan skims by to land in skidding grace on water,
curving its neck into the question mark of the mystery
of ever-changing, separating, dividing, life forms;
the rose's colour and perfume, the striped strike of the tiger,
the sting of the wasp, honey of the bee. Nature for millennia
has worked on the improvement of species, while man
since the Stone Age has helped in the selection
of smell, colour, taste, size, as microscopic genes
frisk in the marvel of evolution. Seasons change
as we tread round black holes, catch falling stars,
spring to summits, frolic with waves' white bubbles.
Here on Life's Tree I swing with my monkey cousin
into an unknown future, greet friends, ibis, black stilt,
mud-fish, worm, residents in the Travis sanctuary.
For countless yesterdays have domino-ed their tomorrows
into the perfection of this day,
the day that is today,
I Dream by Cara Gittings
I dream
of a tangerine tree
by a letterbox
in September,
the Sun's bright light
on its afternoon leaves
I wander
in naked half light
chasing a quarty moon
as it slices through night
casting shadows
on my Counterpane.
I welcome
the sleuthing darkness
over the archipelagos
up through the tundras,
the art of sleep
tugging warily at my eyelids.
The Debutante (Albizia Julibrissin) by Joyce Elwood Smith
Dancing into summer the belle
Of the ball that’s me, sophistication
Plus with a hint of the exotic
See my skirt how it dips and sways
The delicate fern design, the clusters
Of tiny fans embroidered in silken thread.
Once an impudent breeze exposed my
Slender trunk the expression on that
Perverse old cedar was worth fluttering
My tassels, a bit risqué of me I admit
He nearly expired, dropped a cone or two
But as for those prissy flowering cherries
Such ‘show-offs’ in spring, but not as
Demure as they would have you believe
And those insipid natives, boring, boring,
Don’t ever try to be frivolous in their presence!
Also take a look at those acid lovers, their
Psychedelic creations all just a dream now.
And just look at the lazy willows lolling about
By the river, with nothing better to do than
Admire their reflection and trail their locks
But me! I shall flick out my fans and Samba in
The breeze and people will say ‘Oh how
Stunningly charming how lissom,’ and
I should blush - but I won’t
Fruition by Joyce Elwood Smith
I knew she would come
It was in the air this morning
Light just a whiff but enough
To bring her tiny steps in
Satin embroidered slippers
Moon cake face peering up
An inspector without a clipboard,
Studying, scrutinising until
At last choosing her prize.
But wait, it is too soon.
Too soon, wait for the festival
When the leaves are painted
Orange & yellow & red
And the wind teaches them
To dance then the pears will
beckon
like
lanterns
Thoughts From a Botanical Gardens Tree Hugger
by Helen McKinlay
I hug trees.
I like the large ones best.
First of all I hold my hand in close
feel the heat from its trunk
place my ear against its pulse
then stretch my arms around it
and murmur ‘Yggdrasil.’*
But there is one tree in the gardens
surrounded by a fence.
The poles are black and shiny
the sign bright yellow.
“This red beech is declining,”
it says, “and may drop large branches
at any time. Please stay back.”
Reminds me of us humans
when we come of age.
Pop us in the bed
pull up the side rails.
“This person is declining
and may dribble
drop its food
and other things
or toss its limbs about.
Please stay back.”
So I ask you
when it’s my turn
remove the barriers
hug me
and whisper the word
‘Yggdrasil.’
* Norse for Tree of Life
Coming of Age by Angela Mullin
Ten years old and life is sweet -
Playing hopscotch in bare feet.
Age thirteen - puberty hits.
Mayday, mayday, attack of the zits!
Hair starts to sprout in funny places.
They wire up my mouth with braces.
Self-conscious now as hormones rage -
Damn this blasted coming of age.
Hips get wider, boobs get bigger
Not sure of this new womanly figure.
Fourteen and I swear off meat.
No animal carcasses will I eat.
Vegetarian for life, I declare.
Ripped jeans on, I dye my hair.
Fourteen, fifteen – grunger years.
Black uniform, pierced nose and ears.
REM and Kurt Cobain,
No-one understands my pain.
Sixteen - discos, boys and drinking.
Lots of dancing, little thinking.
Shorter skirts and straighter hair,
Hide behind a make-up layer.
Eighteen now, made it unscathed.
Head to uni, find a trade.
Stumbled into adulthood.
Found my way the best I could.
Head off on the big OE.
See what the world has to offer me.
Beachside walk in my bare feet -
Twenty one and life is sweet.
Photo Courtesy of Interflora Pacific Unit Ltd
Photo Credit Raewyn Gorrie
