Largo

For years I have used more salt and pepper

to bring the tasteless food to life

and grieved the death of flower fragrance.

My handwriting has caught the leaf curl

and although I don’t now mind writing slow

with time in abundance day into day

my crop of letters, tight and serrated  

hesitates  before unfurling on the page.

I tripped on a footpath crack last week

and learn to cross with cars more distant,

not quite into the swing of things

with a footfall that often comes up short.

Feeling flat but with a stiff upper lip

I start   stop   then go to see my doctor,

shaking and shaking her by the hand,

while suspecting this will not end well.

In praise of difference

The Chinese in Cornwall Park are interesting.

One lady claps her hands above her head

while walking slowly backwards.

A man strides ahead of his wife,

beaming and loudly greeting

every one he passes. Hurro! Hurro!

Morning! I reply, catching his cheerfulness,

but not knowing whether the downcast eyes

that trudge behind reflect respect

or embarrassment, I long to greet her too.

One old man with a bucket and scoop

is gathering sheep poo for his garden,

and later, over the other side, I see

his counterpart stooping and picking

under the stinky ginkgo tree.

I would like to reassure a lone woman

wearing sunhat and surgical mask,

that the sun is weak at 7 o’clock

and while a mask is wise on the bus

and in the supermarket, out in the breeze

she could safely enjoy the fresh air,

but I don’t intrude.

The Chinese I boarded with as a schoolboy

taught me the art of wielding chopsticks

with my rice bowl in my left palm,

and the etiquette of taking the piece

of chopped meat nearest to me,

even if it had the most bone.

I learned to suck on a salty pickled dried plum

and enjoy it, how to prune tomatoes

and to pick and pack strawberries

with the best specimens always on top.

I drank weak black tea and learned ngor i nee

means I love you, although I may have that wrong.

And younger still, when I fell in the deep sluice pit

by the neighbour’s milking shed,

I was hauled out by a Chinese boy called Hylee Ahoy

and as they said he had saved my life

I let him have one of my plastic cowboys.

When we lived in Nepal and worked

at learning to communicate in Nepali

I doubt that we appreciated then, how weird

we must have seemed, with my bushy beard,

mispronunciations, and our walking

hand-in-hand in public.

The locals laughed and smiled

and welcomed us despite our strangeness

and their poverty, ever friendly,

even when cheerfully ripping us off.

Who would want it any other way?

It’s a hard life

I struggle to stay with the other old buggers

as we grind up the gravel road

from Scandretts Bay to the ridge,

a Tuesday morning commitment

despite the recent scud of rough weather.

These folded and stepped hill slopes

green with the juice of spring

have had their contours clinker-hulled

by generations of grazing sheep

whose meat and wool are now marginal,

the farmers forced to dig deep.

Gasping, we chat a bit and glance the view

flicking from scoured track over the lush

to white sails with Kawau beyond,

trading tales of work that was,

local goss and epic rides to come,

as knuckled tyres grip and spit the grit

and we build a thirst for coffee.