New verse by Kaipara poet Sam Hunt.
Mum and Mary
In the dream my mother
is chatting with her friend, Mary,
mother of Jesus – Mum and
Mary sharing a joint.
Mary tends to rabbit on
about the cost of living,
of everything ‘going up’;
husband, Joseph,
coming in lately
smelling of incense.
All my mother’s friends,
like Mary, have problems.
They’ve each their ‘Little Jesus’
and some husband’s promises
‘one day, all will be well’.
(It never is; won’t ever be).
But Mary’s different.
Never mattered how much she
went on – as she did –
she came from off the fifth wall,
a look in her eye
which, when I caught it,
saw she saw it all.
Sam Hunt, 2018
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Sam Hunt
Sam Hunt remains the most outstanding lyric writer in New Zealand verse. His first book of poems From Bottle Creek was published in 1969; his most recent book Salt River Songs was published in 2016. Sam was born in Castor Bay in 1946.
