RUBEN MITA
Lines that have come a long way to be with us today
i. Here
3 o’clock
came and went
like the buzzing
of a planet
past the ear
of the sun.
ii. Always
The tendrils against the window
knock louder
than ten drills
in the neighbour’s yard.
iii. Both
Trying to look
into the night
I become inseparably
tangled with
my own reflection.
iv. Nowhere
On the book shelf,
water drips
between the searchlights.
v. Forever
The selfless rain fell
from clouds that sacrificed
their colour and shape
for the strength of
the tomato leaf.
vi. Once
Trees turn a field
into a forest
the grass is still there
but no longer defines it.
vii. Elsewhere
I wish you
were a summer beach house
I could lie in.
viii. Now
Remember –
I am 24
and I am
waiting for nothing.
Above Newtown
We went up, higher,
into icicled clouds that
spread moonlight thin on the bracken.
I could see our house and the hospital
stretched long on the world,
saw them rise slowly in time
from the buried stone.
I looked over and you were huge,
as big as night,
an open window.
You framed the moon,
and looking through
from the other side, no doubt
he saw me turn inside you too.
I saw our bodies clearly for what they were,
holes in the air shaped like us
that had waited forever
for us to come fill them,
potholes waiting for their puddles.
Then the nearest planet in disguise as a star
bent down, whispered something in your ear,
woke us up, sliding down a harakeke frond
into the smallness of dawn.
The Flock
He remembers the day they arrived
like it was a first kiss, or a trend-setting dream,
or the day you get an acceptance letter from the moon.
At the time, he was working a night shift job,
influencing the dreams of a rich client.
Standing around his sleeping employer,
holding aloft seashells and paintings and select locks of hair,
he would wander off into his own dreams
in which he stood, a tree holding out his fruit
over a bottomless precipice.
It was an image he couldn’t shake.
After work, on his early-morning way home, he’d stop at the supermarket
and stand by the freezer until the cold reached his bones,
just to feel warm walking out through the fruit and bread.
But when he wasn’t working, he was an outstanding representative of the real.
He’d make his coffee, ties his shoes,
read the newspaper on the bench,
then wander along the overpass,
reciting memorised bits and pieces to the traffic.
In a controversial decision he was named broadcaster of the year
for his work projecting from the top of the bridge.
They told him his words touched people,
they told him authors didn’t even recognise their own work
drifting down onto the motorway,
that they were mailing back their royalty checks.
But he turned it all down, the fame, the vouchers,
for the quiet life amongst his novelty beer mugs.
Eventually, his name was struck off the awards list
when he was caught breaking ancient physical rules
on his daily pedalo commute.
Loving everything a little less,
he would reminisce about sleeping under his mother’s lemon trees,
back when the grass never asked for permission
and the world was overflowing with places to be.
Alone in the afternoon, he turned to reheating those old, cold hours
over and over on a little camping stove.
At work, his employer’s demands had changed.
Now, he aimed for different kinds of dreams,
holding stacks of bank notes, toy pistols and newspaper cuttings.
The shifts took on complicated routines,
and stretched deep into the morning.
Which is why, when they arrived,
he was asleep in the square,
and the first thing he noticed wasn’t the sound,
or the shadows flitting over his shoulder,
but the smell – of nutmeg, warm soil,
and the insides of pianos.
Asleep amongst the flock, he dreamt of new colours,
sprung from fresh cells,
and the dawn chorus of a young planet
after the first, aeon-long night.
When he woke, staring into lemon-yellow eyes,
the city was deep under feathers,
and his shoes were full of seeds.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ruben Mita is a poet, musician and ecologist from Aotearoa New Zealand, now living in the United Kingdom. He has been published in journals such as Landfall, takahē, Best New Zealand Poems/Ōrongohau, Mayhem, Sweet Mammalian, Minarets, a fine line and Starling. He is also the author of 2025’s A Naturalist’s Guide to the Fungi of Aotearoa New Zealand. He likes fish, fire and other worlds.