Kerrin P. Sharpe is a poet and teacher of creative writing from Christchurch, New Zealand. Early on in her career she completed a paper in creative writing at Victoria University of Wellington (1976) and has gone on from then to have her poems published widely in both New Zealand and Australia. She has been published in Best NZ Poems 08, 09, and 10, Best of the Best NZ Poems, (2011), Turbine, Snorkel, Bravado, Takahe, NZ Listener, Poetry NZ, Junctures, Sport and The Press. In 2008, she was awarded the New Zealand Post Creative Writing Teacher’s Award from the International Institute of Modern Letters. She was featured Poet in Takahe 69
order of service
the vicar
puts on
antlers blesses
a fleet
of bees
that have
taken up
deep sea
fishing
the vicar’s wife
gathers cervine
prayers from
the forest
floor with
the breath
of her
spade
the vicar’s daughter
tells communion
wafers how
she woke
a group
of deer
in the
hallway discussing
trophies
after the benediction
the vicar used to the ways
of small farms serves tea
there is a medical name for this
she has no interest
in prolonged immersion
or taking the cure
instead she feeds a fir seed
the magnetic birthwaters
of hanmer springs
and builds a baby
from steam and feather
from early snow
she cannot remember
who is still born
herself or her son
she lines a box
with pinus radiata wings
a scarf of grey sky
and returns him to darkness
she wipes the soft faces
of hammer and needle
blade and comb
and the next day
needs to grow him again
