Riddles
- Cilla McQueen
Who am I, with bulldozed flanks,
my hoard that rises and falls as ships gorge on me?
Resembling mountains, I contain forests.
Forest after forest they come, and are emptied.
Wind sculpts their dark gold hearts exposed.
Who am I, half-killed by chainsaw, shyly returning?
Crowds of miniature oval solar panels, a green hoard safe in my basket-case, proof against browsing moa.
Shorn by wind on the hill, you might take me for the shadow of a hunch.
Who am I now, suspended in mid-air?
I have worked all night to manifest my idea with all the means at my command.
I wait quietly at the centre of my idea.
Bluff poet Cilla McQueen was the New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2009-11. Her most recent collection is The Radio Room (Dunedin, Otago University Press, 2010).
