If She Hadn't Been There

The NZ poet, Brian Turner, is my favourite. As a kiwi, I find his languages and imagery very evocative of home, and I dip in and out of his books regularly.  This is a particularly lovely one from his book Inside Outside. (I've added the pics of rata and pukekos for those not in the know...)

A man sat down to write a love poem

          and thought of clouds like rent fabric

as if falcons had ripped a dreamcoat to bits

   and spread the pieces across the sky.

Beautiful he thought, and lovely the way
       cool water rushes green and silver
over greywacke and schist

    prised from the mountains before his time.

Today, he thought, the light in her eyes

        shines like sunshine on a mayflies' wings.

And today, because he is a New Zealander,

    he thinks of scarlet and green, of rata

and keas, of pukekos and their pervy-princeliness,
     of yellowhammers and godwits,
of the kee-aa cries that are just as thrilling

    as the sound of nightingales singing

in Berkeley Square. He thinks of down

      and sheen and kindness and care.

He thinks of what he would be now

     if she hadn't been there.