GREGORY O’BRIEN
A burning tyre, Nuku‘alofa
With guavas and Pablo Neruda, we came
to the greenness
of this land, but our attempts
to meet the king
came to nothing. Confined to the blackness
of my shell, I was a crab
tied in red string, well-positioned
at the royal feast, but not
as I would have wished.
That I might speak
briefly with his highness
of such things
as weigh upon me. To the foreshore
I fled, while in the distance
his crab-shaped crown shook
its pincers at the sun.
Unfathomable morning,
these things heavy
upon my heart, I sought counsel
amidst the graves
of his ancestors—four corners of the sky
held in place
by volcanic boulders—and beneath
the unmoving clock faces
of his kingdom. Minute hands, hour hands . . .
I waved my pincers
in bafflement. Together, you and I
sought instead
the company of shellfish—those lowliest
citizens of this island—
in the mudflats where immigrant families
competed with pigs
for mussels. Later, you were a weather balloon
that you might gain
his attention, but as the day wore on
you were caught in an updraft
above the Cathedral of
the Burning Tyre—and it was not a done thing
to be higher than
his kingliness.
Nightfall, we were both
brass instruments
of the Royal Army Band—that we might
phrase our questions
in a language he understood. But,
for the sound of ourselves
we could not hear
a word of his reply. Not for
the sirens of a sinking ferry, brakes
and stammering exhaust of royal carriage—
a London cab crossing
the potholed kingdom.
Gregory O’Brien’s collection of poems inspired by recent travels in the South Pacific, Whale Years, appeared in March 2015 from Auckland University Press. He spent 2015 as Stout Memorial Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, working on a book that explores the relationship between poetry, painting and the natural environment. Other recent publications include Beauties of the Octagonal Pool (AUP, 2012), Citizen of Santiago (Trapeze, 2013), a collaboration with photographer Bruce Foster, and See What I Can See: New Zealand Photography for the Young and Curious (AUP, 2015).
Links
Arts Laureate recipient profile at the Arts Foundation
The Kermadecs project
Auckland University Press author page