The Friday Poem: ‘To the kahikatea I see from my bed’ by Robin Peace
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A new poem by Robin Peace.
To the kahikatea I see from my bed
Thinking inside the square, the ellipse,
the round of what life is,
I only see the trees.
Not only
as if that were the only thing I see,
but only
as if the tree matters more.
The simple way the branch ends in leaf.
Words
fail it.
All that uplift,
tingling chemical
under the halo
of the sun.
Working at it.
Invisible manufacture
without waste,
detritus,
rage, or
grief.
The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are currently closed.
Robin Peace
Ōtaki writer Robin Peace lives in the margin land of Otepua wetland with her partner, observing and interacting with the natural world. A retired geographer, teacher and academic, her first collection of poetry, A Passage of Yellow Red Birds, was published in 2018. She contri¬buted a poem ‘In the Moment’ to More Favourable Waters: Aotearoa poets respond to Dante’s Purgatory, and ‘Intricate Relationships’ to The Power in Our Truth: the Truth of Our Power.
