it's hot at ten in the morning
the biggest surf in 40 years
the paper says
and tells of one who
balanced words
and rode in
Hone Tuwhare is dead
he's leaving the island
without a board
without a spanner
without a scribbler
free of all that
free
no ordinary man
the chooks need feeding
there's work to be done
but you can't work today
it's not the same
you're much less
and you're enriched
by what's gone before
a way is being prepared for him
by these and other words
these and other prayers
years later, my sister
got a letter from a penpal
a boy in England
he'd written a poem about
war in the middle east
called it 'Scars of Lebanon'
she showed it to me
and I wept
she told the boy I liked his poem
and he told her
I could write to him if I wanted
but I never did