Tuesday Poem: Penny Lane

– she says, I’ll get my hat 

We meet at Heketara Street

by the seawall but sometimes

if I’m early, it’s the lane

with the crabapple tree.

In truth, we meet where we

intersect. Sometimes I get as

far as her gate, she my door.

Penny’s always ripe in red

or orange wool, and old

Molly's at the end

of a Thai scarf, her hips

barely holding her legs in.

I’m scraped together, really,

bits of this and that – mended

boots, Adam’s jacket –

Ruby gasping on the lead.

– she says, there’s this poem

And there’s something in it

about being in labour

and the cabbage tree pom-poms
cheering her on but Penny 

isn’t sure it works. We walk 
under the power lines and the man

on the ladder, and we talk

about cooking cabbage trees.

Before we know it, we’re at the end

of the sealed road and touching

the gate and turning – back past

the car park and the spent condom

and the buses, back past the man

up the ladder and the woman

with the dachshund. At the lane

where we part

– she says, crabapples!

what a shame, Elsie could make

jam with them.  I get home 
and the phone rings. She's lost 
her hat, have I seen it?

I look, but we both know 
it’s not here. Within a week 
or two, she’ll arrive at  Heketara 
Street the hat on her head.

– she’ll say, I picked up a book

and there it was. And

we’ll turn into the wind.

                                  Mary McCallum

I used to treasure these walks with my friend Penny, when we were both writing and needing to talk about it. She left Eastbourne a year ago, so Ruby and I walk this walk on our own now.  I sometimes think I see Penny coming along that lane I think of as her lane. And for months, Ruby would pause and wait a moment where Penny and I used to intersect before moving on. When Penny returns for a visit, we try and do the walk. Hats and wind and all. 

Do please click here to enter the Tuesday Poem hub where our global birthday poem is posted. We had 26 poets from six countries and 12 cities posting a line at a time over a fortnight. It was terrific fun. And now it's done. Visit do. 

Happy Birthday to us. Ra Whanau ki a korua.