Tuesday Poem: Tangaroa at Days Bay: the fishing man by John Horrocks

            After a print by Michel Tuffery

In this house you can never tell

when it’s raining, for the streams

sound all night outside our windows.

Tangaroa, his black form

ornamented with yellow fish,

stands above our bed, his head

slightly lowered, as though he

can never stop listening

to the running water

or the waves at the beach.

His world is full of bounty.

A blue kahawai swims at his feet.

Beside his dark legs a wash

of gold floods among

eager shapes of fish

hastening to adorn

the fabric of his body.

Poised in the harvest-laden sea

He treads the waves on our wall,

A fastidious and deliberate god,

content merely to demonstrate

how every flowing moment

of every day might be.

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I love the bountifulness of this poem and the water and the fact of a god. John Horrocks, who was once a farmer in the Wairarapa and wrote wonderful poems about hills called Mount Misery and sheepdogs, lives close to the sea now (and close to where I live) and writes often of water. I remember hearing this poem read the first time and loving the movement of it,  and the sounds. I have seen the Tuffery print too - it's fantastic. John's poem is included in Eastbourne (an anthology) which I am co-editing and is out soon. 

When you've read this poem do go to the Tuesday Poem hub where a young South African has a wonderful sensual poem posted ... 

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