Stead, C.K.

New Zealand, (b. 1932)

21 Postscript
excerpt from ‘The Clodian Songbook’

  1.  
  2. An elbow of grass where the stream ran down to meet
  3. the long arm of the sea, and on the headland
  4.  
  5. pohutukawa for shade – our campsite, Clodia
  6. where earliest morning offered a great grey stretch
  7.  
  8. of level water turning to blue with the sky.
  9. The stream was my path inland, deep into bush.
  10.  
  11. In a clearing there, listening at a gullet of stone,
  12. watching for those small brown fish with transparent bodies,
  13.  
  14. I met his flat snout and tusks, his black-bristled shoulders
  15. and mean pig eyes. His breathing seemed thoughtful
  16.  
  17. with just an echo in it of grunt and of squeal
  18. before he turned and went, leisurely, among ferns.
  19.  
  20. That was four decades buried and long forgotten –
  21. so why should he visit me this January morning
  22.  
  23. between sleep and waking, in all his particulars,
  24. still thoughtful, still threatening, keeping his options open?

© C.K. Stead. Collected Poems, 1951-2006. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press (2009).

1849 The Settler

  1. These trees that hang over the bay
  2. shedding red stamens – the Natives call it
  3. pohutukawa. Like a discreet servant
  4. the tide enters. My children run to meet it
  5. barefoot, brown-skinned. I call them savages.
  6. They seem to fear nothing, born to this wild land.
  7.  
  8. I scrub the floor with sand. The pine whitens
  9. and the grain show’s through more clearly.
  10.  
  11. Last year the local hapu took my husband.
  12. They told him, ‘Eat and grow so you will make
  13. good kai for us.’ After two nights they laughed
  14. and let him go – told him, ‘Long pig, run home!’
  15.  
  16. Two days ago a war party stopped at our door –
  17. took pork frommy kitchen. I couldn’t speak.
  18. Naked, beautiful men – by now they may be dead,
  19. or eating the dead.
  20.  
  21. Light dances on the water,
  22. sharpens the headland’s edge and the far horizon –
  23. a brightness that speaks to the soul. Home is the dream.
  24. I fear for myself, longing for a sail, and letters.

© C.K. Stead. Collected Poems, 1951-2006. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press (2009).

About the Poet:

Christian Karlson “C.K.” Stead, New Zealand, (b. 1932), is a poet whose works also include novels, short stories, and literary criticism. Stead is one of New Zealand’s foremost literary figures.

He is a distinguished novelist, literary critic, poet, essayist and emeritus professor of English of the University of Auckland. Stead retired from teaching in 1986 to write full-time. He received a CBE in 1985 and was admitted into the highest honour New Zealand can bestow, the Order of New Zealand in 2007. In August 2015, he was named the New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2015 to 2017. [DES-03/18]

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