Rakiura Wren [for Sheila Natusch] Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Diminutive, sticky-beak bird questing
Hopping hither along the window frame
Inquiring into life - looking, tapping
Always wide-eyed and eager … spin-drift tame.

No housing-keeping for you Rakiura wren
No offspring to mind other than your books:
Only the shingle-wash as it breaks again
And the sky clearing snagged cloud bait hooks

The scream of the gulls and their shrill arising
Spinifex, sand tussock, native musk … flax
Raukawa dolphins and whales surfacing
The whip of the wind with its foremast lash

The songs of the straits and the lost islands
Brought to reflection with claw-pen hands.