High Country Weather

Alone we are born
and die alone
yet see the red-gold cirrus
over snow-mountain shine.

Upon the upland road
ride easy stranger:
surrender to the sky
your heart of anger.

James K. Baxter


Photograph of James K. Baxter

Tupelo Honey

You can take all the tea in china
Put it in a big brown bag for me
Sail right around the seven oceans
Drop it straight into the deep blue sea
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee

You cant stop us on the road to freedom
You cant keep us cause our eyes can see
Men with insight, men in granite
Knights in armor bent on chivalry
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee

You cant stop us on the road to freedom
You cant stop us cause our eyes can see
Men with insight, men in granite
Knights in armor intent on chivalry
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee

You know shes alright
You know shes alright with me
She's alright, she's alright (she's an angel)

You can take all the tea in china
Put it in a big brown bag for me
Sail it right around the seven oceans
Drop it smack dab in the middle of the deep blue sea
Because she's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee

She's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like the honey, baby, from the bee
She's my baby, you know she's alright. . . . . .

The Silk of Kings

Reality
muddies the waters
of my rest.

A reminder, yet again:
together we are
primitive woven cloth,
not the silk of kings
or dreams.

And I die another death.


8 August 1999

Photograph/Liz March

Just in time

It feels both timely and wonderful to be moving into summer again. Shirley has been working her green fingers to the bone on my behalf and the garden is almost ready to be planted. All it needs now is 1.5 cubic metres of Living Earth organic compost/bark/seaweed mix to top up the raised garden beds. And that arrives this coming weekend. Next week the transformation begins. I'm itching to get a newly-bought assortment of organic Koanga Gardens heirloom vegetable seedlings into the ground. During winter months, my horticultural inclinations hibernate. But they have now well and truly re-awakened. Just in time.

Photograph/Derek March - Kaihikatea trees in the Whirinaki Forest NZ