New Zealand I am in New Zealand, almost at the end of my New Zealand tour. This is a very fine country in so many ways. Yesterday I was up in the Hokianga region, a remote part where my grandfather, a Scottish doctor, worked for many years introducing a free medical service. I was greeted by a lovely Maori welcoming ceremony. Here is a poem I have written about the long white cloud after which New Zealand is named in the Maori language: Land of the Long White Cloud (the Maori name for New Zealand) This place was named in the best of ways, By reference to things that are, to how They seem when we look at them; Iceland evokes ice; Norway sounds Northern, at least to our ear, And this place is, in English, The Land of the Long White Cloud, Which can be seen, almost daily, Intersecting the hills, dividing the sky. So as our plane comes down, a voice That I believe is the pilot’s says: “We shall now begin our descent Through the long white cloud beneath; We are not lost, our enquiring radar Sees through long white cloud As a torch-beam cuts through darkness; Electronics bring us down on the very runway We are meant to land on; So may the lives of each of us Lead us to where we should be.” That’s what the pilot said. On the screen the weather woman Says: “As you can see, approaching us now Is a bank of long white cloud; This will bring showers throughout.” Long white clouds are filled With moisture, which weather women Call precipitation; we use the word rain To speak of the veils of white, That drift down from the sky above, Whose legacy is water, and regret. Clouds have their own poetry: Cumulo-nimbus, sirrus, a mackerel sky, All tell us with the voice of a seer What the morning air is proposing To make of the afternoon; I may love thunderclouds, some do, Because they remind us … of what? Of an Old Testament deity Who punishes the wicked or those We may not particularly like? But who cannot love in greater measure A slow-moving long white cloud, That issues no warnings, nor grumbles, But says: live your life as you wish, Ignore me if you will, but remember To be a good friend, a kind lover, A conscientious parent, an unselfish voter. AMcS
Posted on: Fri, 23 May 2014 06:15:34 +0000
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