vital

infinite time to reflect on vital things

sentient and alive as the sun carves beneath my skin and mandarin segments linger on my tongue, to the tune of childhood lunch-boxes

i am like a blackbird lingering at an empty water trough with the promise of being satiated, desire imprinted upon me

once i was a wee girl with silver-buckled shoes who danced in a swirling emerald cape, and safety beckoned

now i look inwards, getting lost as synapses jostle in their reconnection-recollection

with infinite time to reflect on vital things

wairoro

wairoro brain eggshell taonga

how often were you shaken?

i lost count at ten

now you halt me

completely

an uneasy witness

to a pared back life

of overflowing shoeboxes

screaming ‘more odds than ends’

with fragility poised

on silken threads

of broken-up highways

that reside in my head

 

Micro Madness

Kia ora WordPress whānau,

It’s not a freshly created post today, but rather a shared link for a micro/flash published yesterday.

Stoked that I made it into the Top 22 of Micro Madness, an offshoot of National Flash Fiction Day.  And I love the idea of less being more.

Day 11 is where you’ll find my story ‘Anchor’. https://nationalflash.org/micro-madness/

Happy reading 🙂

 

Thinking outside the box

Kia ora WordPress whānau,

Sharing today an essay I’ve written for Corpus—a wonderful digital forum where ‘conversations about medicine and life’ take place.

It speaks to a shared journey with fibromyalgia, cancer, chronic pain and managing conditions holistically, to include our indigenous perspectives and practices.

http://corpus.nz/thinking-outside-box/#more-3610

Please share, if you feel it might be useful for others.

Ngā mihi nui, best wishes

Iona

the three

life love loss

exactly the same

regardless of where they sit

be it lap or throat

all three

peel back the folds of me

exposing a core

of bruised and hidden truths

keen

i walk the mist swathed whenua

into light captured spiderwebs

lakeside swans poke their arses in the air

to remind me of what has been stripped bare

 

homeless people sleep near the bubbling springs at night but come morning are moved on—make way for the tourists, this is not your home

 

a stillness belies the mauri underfoot

listen

to the dampened whisper

as Papatūānuku keens

waterfall

unobscured mists

met the junction of my skin

lovingly

constriction becalmed

 

a waterfall-salve

of rivulets ran

thick with purpose

and the promise of you

(Picture taken at McLean Falls, Southland, Aotearoa)