Morepork
A poem by Jeffrey Harpeng
wings the colour of summer grass
the day a butterfly pinned
with time in its belly me on its back
on the road that ends at the underpass
at my back it continues
beyond the highway it has another life
on one of the wings the colour wavers
summer gone to seed
greenfinches rise in a startle and swerve
divide as they arc, arc as they divide
thoughts, as if there was another road
memory might travel
the road by night, stars and streetlights
or down the tree edged twilight verge
there a broken fence
tilts, tangles wire barbs with gorse grey
weather-split posts, as into an age hollow
tree a morepork* the colour
intuition turns when cooled to words, rises
*The morepork is an owl native to New Zealand.
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