The Girl in the Park - Hone Tuwhare

The Girl in the Park
- Hone Tuwhare

The girl in the park
saw a nonchalant sky
shrug into a blue-dark
denim coat.

The girl in the park
did not reach up to touch
the cold steel buttons.

The girl in the park
saw the moon glide
into a dead tree's arms
and felt the vast night
pressing.
How huge it seems
and the trees are big she said.
The stars head her
and swooped down perching
on tree-top and branch
owl-like and unblinking.

The grave trees,
as muscular as her lover
leaned darkly down to catch
the moonrise and madness
in here eyes:
the moon is big, it is very big
she said with velvet in her throat.

An owl hooted.
The trees scarped and nudged
each other and the stars
carried the helpless
one-ribbed moon away...

The girl in the park
does not care: her body swaying
to the dark-edged chant
of storms


O'Sullivan, V. (Ed.). (1979). An anthology of twentieth century New Zealand poetry. Wellington: Oxford University Press.