Lichen patches and rust
almost erase my family name
from the kerosene can letterbox.
Rata twines around the gate,
kikuyu fingers stretch
and join across the track.
The milking shed,
roof broken by a weight of stars,
crouches sway-backed against the sky.
Moonlight fills its windows,
spills through gap-toothed walls,
lies in lozenges along the grass.
Creamy fog pours down the creek,
circles the swamp, backs over
the meadow, as it always did.
Mournful as memory
a hidden mopoke calls
all the shadows
wake.
Mercedes Webb-Pullman: Victoria University Wellington MA in Creative Writing, 2011. Her poems and short stories have appeared online and in print, including Turbine, 4th Floor, Melancholy Hyperbole, and her books. She lives on the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand.
Categories: Poetry, Themed, Unseen
Tags: A wanderer returns, childhood, home, loneliness, memories, Mercedes Webb-Pullman, sadness
Melancholy Hyperbole 