I remember white frailty
filling clear skies
like wedding confetti,
thousands of cabbage moths would halo the Hawkes Bay hills
we referred to them as butterflies
because that sounds much more picturesque
than a cluster of white-winged lamp lusters.
Those white butterflies,
varied in shades
shifting hues of milk cream
yogurt white and
pale yellow – like
the juice that would slide from fresh corn
when Nana McGill would slice it off the cob
her false teeth incompetent
when it came to such solids.
I remember in the adjacent paddock,
Heifers and jersey cows would stand, dozing near the swollen creek.
The smell of rotting water crescent threading through yellow grass.
I remember hot tarred pavement on the way to the school pool,
loose pebbles stuck to bare
rawing feet; puddles of thick liquid tar
-’they need to reseal these roads ‘– Aunty Jane would mutter,
skin freckled from blistering summer rays, zinc on her nose and dark patches under her pits
And always the butterflies. Masses of moths.
Clutters, dipping and threading through the tussock grass.
Dipping and threading through the sun dust.
And on balmy afternoons
we would drink lemonade
to rinse the salt from dairy chips
off our gums