This Time

 

These are the stars of poetry
Too good to be true
Over the hills
And in the brim-full bay;

And this, that ultimate coin
The dead exchange –
Silence.

Unscrew your ears?
Put them away for good?
No. Unstop them.
You’re not a spirit.
Listen.
Dews gather at an edge and
Drop. Drop
On frosted blades.

Even such small
Crystalline vocables
Tell time.

Count them.
Count yourself lucky.

from Straw Into Gold, Poems New & Selected (Auckland University Press, 1997), © C K Stead 1997, used by permission of the author. Recording from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive 2004.

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