Up the garden path
​
Up the garden path, you see
misty dim the Eden entry
gated by a sultry sentry
lonely Asian elm tree.
He of spindly spine
and serpentine
extends a branch to greet
a guiding hand to meet
you, leading to retreat.
Amid sweet-scented thyme
you linger there and
mount the rocky stair
rough-hewn and spare
rain-spattered now and bare
of moss.
​
Through the rhododendron
rhododendron garden
floriubunda bowers, dew-beladen
earth is pillowed like a fen
of feather-petals pink.
And then ... [excerpt]
© vmt
Skeltonic verse
That rainbow in your eyes
How can I write a poem about you
without you and the sun
for you are one?
How can I name the sun
without your colours, blazing
amazing, dancing in your eyes?
Those glistening prisms of delight
glancing light, you gave me once
before I knew
how to name it love.
​
It was the element of your surprise
that rainbow in your eyes
that reflected back my sunlight, laughing.
In our parallel, striped orbits
you shone through me when
I twirled my lollipop skirt, on tiptoe
pink and yellow, green and blue for you.
I was your rainbow too
but we had it backwards so it seems
for then, it rained
and I awoke in tears as from a dream.
© vmt
From "Wellington Beach and other poems"
​
Midnight Ferry
The ice parts as she moves
making way, Glenora
channels through the January bay
relentless
and the cold black water
draws into the depths
that somewhere join the pitch
of the horizon.
Shivering, dare I entertain
a night fear, shipwreck fantasy
absurd, unreasoned, real.
As north wind blows
and creaks the mast
the engines churn the floes
at last, determined
ghostly captain at the wheel
straining as she goes
swerving wide across the current
chugging raucous cross the bay ... [excerpt]
​
© vmt
​
From "Mauve You Rise and other poems". First published in Watershed magazine, winter 2006/07