Misty Songs Of Yearning Poem by Terence George Craddock (Spectral Images and Images Of Light)

This unseasonal cold
and misty Christchurch rain;
blows biting weeping yet stirs,
the tempo suiting,
separating Pakeha souls.

For we are lost lifelong friends
treading solo our last bittersweet
summer wine; drunk separately,
together, in long twilight, Aotearoa.

Weep summer skies weep
tears forecasting foretelling frozen
turmoil thundering departure.

Rain born of Aorangi
Ao cloud and Rangi sky
rain born of cloud in the sky.

Rain born of Aorangi Maori;
Pakeha Mount Cook.
The highest mountain
in this supposedly
integrated bicultural country.
Sky-piercer bear weight
of cloud upon my shoulder.


In her hazel flecked green eyes
bites nut-bearing dust speckled separation;
bites greenstone anchor jaw bone
hook of Moriori ancestry;
bites womb woven waiata aroha;
bites dominant children love of mother;
bites submissive traditional duty bound
love; of unrequited honoured totara husband.


Moriori full blood extinction, gone like Hamata,
Moriori claim mythical race descended from Gods.
Hamata, ghost lawgivers keepers of knowledge.

Bites dramatic soliloquy face saving card
speaking of “so many emotions bubbling
at the surface of... [her stewed volcanic geyser] soul! ”

Telling the tale
she has “no answers.”
Telling the tale she knows
“you love... her completely...”
Telling tragic returning tale
that she loves you too.


Telling traditional mother love for children
telling that she is “responsible for them”
telling that she is “getting in [too] deep”;
among weeping West Coast river’s; heavy greenstone boulders.


Once she told of
“Your face, your smell, your voice,
your touch & making love with
you, never enough! ”

Once she told of
“Your poetry where... [she] found
your unique & special soul.”


Many times she told
in many varied ways her parting lines.
“I will always love you, but
cannot be with you.”


Aotearoa (pronounced [aoˌ teaˈ roa]) is the most widely known and accepted Mā ori name for New Zealand.

Copyright © Terence George Craddock
http: //www.poemhunter.com/terence-george-craddock/