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Mapping the Distance
Mapping the Distance
Mapping the Distance
Ebook79 pages24 minutes

Mapping the Distance

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This superb collection of poems shows the benefit of ten years gestation. The major part of the book consists of poems coming from years spent living and studying overseas and then settling back in New Zealand and starting a family. With its broad scope and variety of lyric styles, Mapping the Distance is a landmark book.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 1, 2010
ISBN9780864736673
Mapping the Distance

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    Book preview

    Mapping the Distance - Ingrid Horrocks

    Figs

    Figs do not grow on trees on my side of the water,

    no perfume tells the tale outside.

    First there were paintings

    of delicately placed leaves,

    then, writing which hung lives

    from a fig tree’s branches.

    Later, I read of my great aunt eating

    a large dish of exquisite small green figs.

    She was leaning from a window in Italy

    listening to church bells sound.

    My first fig is served at breakfast

    disguised in green-brown skin

    wet and cool from the tree.

    I eat it slowly with a silver fork.

    The next, months later, is sweeter,

    plucked by my sun-darkened arm.

    I squeeze it open with fingers

    and taste the pink flesh.

    Kaki

    In Japan it was peeled by a mother,

    cut into four and placed on a china plate.

    It was almost round with skin bright orange,

    its leaves folded back in a four-tongued collar.

    I was given a toothpick to eat with,

    a napkin to wipe juice from my chin.

    I learnt that this sweet fruit was named kaki

    date plum, Chinese apple or persimmon.

    In Italy it comes to me from the hands of a woman.

    It is half green, half orange, with twigs still attached.

    Tartness fills my mouth.

    I ask a name, she gives me kaki.

    It has been grafted with the local

    orange plum, diospyros lotus.

    A tree now grows beside her house;

    together we feed the bruised fruits to the chickens.

    Cactus

    No cacti for the windowsill,

    they are green and ten feet tall,

    their plate-sized leaves pin-cushioned,

    their fruit – swollen eggs turned yellow.

    I have seen her eat and try to imitate her movements,

    grasping the fruit and hacking it from the plant.

    The prickles are small and puncture my skin,

    I do not dare to bring them near my tongue.

    Next time I watch how she selects a softer plant,

    how gently she holds the cactus, slices it from the stem

    then slits it open with a neat stroke along its skin.

    She gives me first an orange fruit, then a

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