New series: a new poem by CK Stead every Sunday for the next four weeks
On a day late summer in a poem like wine
I ask what it’s like out there and she replies
‘Gorgeous – “like silk” to quote your lovely poem.’
She must be third or fourth to tell me that –
so I’m known here as a poet, and for a line
that says the water out at the yellow buoy
on a good day feels like silk. For that nice trope
I’m ‘famous at Kohi’ – but neither my recall
nor the books themselves seem to confirm I wrote it.
Today’s one of those rare and windless ones,
the surface all the way to Rangitoto
glassy, while the water that’s been tepid
now has a hint of winter, making it feel
indeed like silk! – so I catch up with myself
on a day late summer in a poem like wine.
Next Sunday's poem by CK Stead: "Thelma", a meditation on the departed
