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Dorothy Howie
New Zealand

Tui Taonga 1-5 Penny Howard
Dorothy Howie lives in Auckland and is an emerging poet, with poems published in Poetry New Zealand and other New Zealand journals. She also researches and writes on the teaching of thinking.
Lunacy

Riemke Ensing : ‘After Loss’
‘In the moon
touching the lamp.’

Your own personal madness,
longing for the moon –
impeccable behaviour,
improbably perfect men.

Only days after you died
a full moon rose
above the slivered harbour,
ten per cent bigger, value added.

So I think of you as sitting in the moon,
my own personal myth,
your slim straight back, elegant ankle swinging,
smiling down and admonishing us –
‘get your act together!’






Ruru*

The morepork’s mournful cry
in the lonely nights
denoting your death.

Its two part cry
keening an untied knot
yet guardian and shelter.

The Magellan clouds, interacting,
small and large, each so different,
driving star formation in their galaxies.




* Williams’ Maori dictionary gives the following meanings for ‘ruru’ :
- owl/morepork
- knot
- affording shelter
- ‘whakaruru-hau’, the Magellan Clouds.






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