David Mason: ‘New Zealand Letter’

New Zealand Letter
(Revised in memory of Anne Stevenson, 1933–2020)

Nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so

unstable as the level of the crust of the earth.

                                                —Charles Darwin

This morning, groggy and a bit footsore

from another tramp in these New Zealand hills,

I write to you, Anne and Peter, in Wales

or Durham, no doubt hoofing it yourselves,

or Anne with Mozart at her fingertips,

Peter tracking Darwin across the page.

Just now the sun slipped under laden clouds,

lighting a forest that, from where I sit,

could be some alternate Seattle, made

by an artist fond of Hobbits and Maori lore,

exotic but expected like the sky

two nights ago: Orion on his back,

and at the opposite end what Bishop called

the kite sticks of the Southern Cross.

                                                            Out here

in Queenstown’s alps I’m slightly less at sea.

Two weeks ago, in a Northland port of call

that…