Category Archives: Verse

A liturgy of riddles

City on a hill

How many

The no longer unknown

Red-vented Bulbol

If I could wing 
into any affair
as boldly as you,
perch on a chair 
all clever black crown 
and silvery flare,
with barely a flash 
of scarlet down there,
I would be welcome anywhere.

‘Ua’u kani

Pity the wedge-tailed shearwater,
moaning in the dark daily,
rising unfailingly
from beneath the sands
to vanish in shadows
between the pink-orange sky
and the blue-black sea.