BOB ORR

Kiwitahi Way

An orchard
silvery and green
as a sunlit breaking sea.
The season
stands aside
to allow my grandfather
his harvest.
Over seventy
he climbs a ladder
and disappears
into an apple tree.
How they bounce
into an empty bucket.
Like somebody
calling my name
out in their sleep
over and
over
        Robert
                 Robert

‘Kiwitahi Way’ appears in Bob Orr’s seventh book of poetry, Calypso, published by Auckland University Press in 2008. Born in 1949, Orr was brought up in the rural Waikato. He now divides his time between the Coromandel and Auckland, where he works on the Waitemata Harbour and lives ‘by pine trees, Western Springs Park and the Zoo’.

Poem source details >

 

Links

Auckland University PressCalypso
nzepc—New Zealand Electronic Text Centre: online work
New Zealand Book Council writer file
Best New Zealand Poems 20012002 and 2003