VINCENT O'SULLIVAN
That’s today, I mean
A day goes near perfect as morning makes it.
A black dog flaring a white beach.
Hectares of buttercups bend the skyline yellow.
A bull bulks the slope from the creek.
The surf's molten bar, the inlet's
placid stretch. A sea lion cruises twenty
yards offshore, turns its mirrored sleekness
north. Two surfers rise in the distance,
carry their boards as if loot from flooded
chapels. Our minds for once unbothered
at being minds. Tides haul swathes of light,
late, westing. Dark calls it a day.

Vincent O'Sullivan was the author of the novels Let the River Stand, Believers to the Bright Coast, and All This by Chance. He wrote many plays and collections of short stories and poems, was joint editor of the five-volume Letters of Katherine Mansfield, edited a number of major anthologies, and was the author of acclaimed biographies of John Mulgan and Ralph Hotere. He was the New Zealand poet laureate for 2013–2015. In 2000, he was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and in 2021 he was redesignated as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Vincent died in 2024. His last book was the acclaimed poetry collection Still Is (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2024).
Photographer credit: Grant Maiden