LYNN DAVIDSON

 

Islay, Aberdeen, Lothian, Brisbane, Pukerua Bay

 
I saw 
a dipper in and out of a stream 
pouring through composition into song. 

I saw 
bull kelp on Islay 
make a shore like my shore. 

I saw where my great aunt stepped out 
in her stylish cinch-waist coat, 
out of private violence into the hovering institutions of the street. 

I saw 
the language inside my language – 
yolk, shell, nest, foreknowledge: a chaos of need, then flight. 

I saw 
at the top of a rise, the round church 
so the devil can’t hide in the corners. I circled it, couldn’t get inside. 

I recalled my son’s favourite Attenborough clip: 
a snow leopard running like milk or glacier down a mountain, 
and mine – us side by side in front of it, on the L-shaped couch. 

I recalled my daughter after school broke up 
in winter, woollen hat and jacket hurled on, paddling the kayak 
across the bay. No life jacket and going like a bat out of hell. A quick wave. 

I remind myself to finish The Divine 
Comedy – I’ve never yet made it out of hell. The dolphin-backs 
arcing out of pitch. The hooks. 

And I’m going to say again that I saw the dipper, 
and I saw bog cotton – outside of a poem 
for the first time. Leaning in. Listening. 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynn Davidson has published poetry, fiction and essays. Her latest books are Common Land which combines poetry and essays, and a novella The Desert Road. Lynn has poems in The Best of Best New Zealand PoemsBig Weather: Poems of WellingtonEssential New Zealand PoemsAnother English: Anglophone Poems from Around the World and PN Review. Lynn is currently working towards a PhD in Creative Writing at Massey University, Wellington. In 2013 Lynn was writing fellow at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland.