The Tuesday poem from Confluence comes today from Gerard Couper. Just as it's been hard to choose which of his poems to post (and in fact I've chosen two), it's hard to speak about Gerard. Rather like his work, there are strata beneath the understated straightforwardness that give themselves up slowly. In the book I say about him: Gerard is a Crazy Wisdom Master. Just when you think he’s laughing and that this is a gentle poem about nature, or his daughter, he trips you up with words that glint like a blade, or black ice just showing up in spring sunlight; words that send you back to the beginning. He comes from New Zealand.
Road Markings
Back then, out in the sticks,
there were just dirt roads strung with telephone lines, gangly,
ill at ease in a shirt and tie
At night, he told me,
the poles were the only markers you had, the Braille
that stopped your ute sliding into the manuka scrub
or some cockie’s paddock
So tall and raw-boned he was
that you imagined
he didn’t need a ladder slung in the back
of the powerboard truck
It seemed a desertion to me
when they moved to the bungalow in town
while Nanna did the crossword
denaturing the vegetables for midday dinner
he slouched in the garden
keeping the company of those other long-boned beings
the rake and the clothesline
Waiting
The very last time he met me
we waited while my rucksack bobbed on the carousel
pohutakawas in fire blossom on the Hutt Road
stopping to buy timber for his d-i-y
if he sat on this beach now
he still wouldn’t say anything
I would still slam down these last few words
and bolt
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