The Garden God

Disturbing the plait-work of leaves under the white manuka,
I found a garden god.
Small dark stone, Polynesian curved.
Half-enwombed in the Oaro earth.
From stone lips his stone words slipped
As Maori as the weed-wash of the sea.

I was afraid of him. Afraid of Maori things,
So with my foot I kicked him into the disenchanting sun,
into a part-reality.

He was again over kumara-strips, the small dark stone
guarded them in the red of the sun that trailed
her after-birth behind Omihi:
He, thing of the world of stone, and I of the world of air,
were of some strange understanding.
And, in love, I gave him to the sea.

John W. Wilson