Saturday 9 June 2018

Small Moments of Warmth

Dear Reader,
                                                                                  Lake Wanaka

This beautiful lake lies at the heart of the Otago Lakes in the lower South Island of New Zealand.  The township is situated in a glacier carved basin on the shores of the lake and is the gateway to the Aspiring National Park.  At its greatest extent the lake is 42 kilometres long.  Its widest point, at the southern end, is 10 kilometres.  The lakes western shore is lined with high peaks rising to over 2000 metres above sea level.

For Maori the Wanaka area was a natural crossroads. Until the nineteenth century Wanaka was visited by Ngai Tahu, the principal Maori tribe of the Southern Region of New Zealand.  They hunted eels and birds over summer returning to the east coast in reed boats.  Ngai Tahu use of the land was ended by attacks by North Island tribes.  In 1836, the Ngati Tama chief led a 100-person war party, armed with muskets, down the west coast and over the Haast Pass: they fell on the Ngai tahu encampment between Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, capturing ten people and killing and eating two children.  Maori seasonal visits, no surprise, ceased after this.

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Small Moments of Warmth

I remember a little warmth
Joey trotting the family through Norfolk lanes,
the small yellow trap swaying in the sunshine.

I remember picnics on Yarmouth beach
with enough blue sky "to make a sailor's trouser".
We ate sucumber sandwiches.  Penguin biscuits.

I remember dark evenings,
the small warm flame from a Tilly lamp
lighting the kitchen, and sometimes for supper
we had chicken, chocolate mousse.

I remember a warm holiday in France
squeezed into the back of the car,
singing old thirties love songs.

But will these small moments of warmth,
at the end, be enough to heat and spilt
the heavy stones that circle the human heart,
allow salt tears to trickle through the cracks?

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With very best wishes, Patricia

3 comments:

  1. Beautiful, heart-wrenching.

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  2. There will be enough small moments of warmth for sure. What a beautiful poem.XX

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  3. Yes, I believe they will be enough. They feel like part of Aslan's love - gentle but powerful! Breaking stone and bringing spring...?
    There is tenderness in tears - this poem portrays that.
    And my nana used to say about enough blue to make a pair of sailor's trousers!
    Thank you xx

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