In a Motueka Coffee Bar - Peter Olds
Any poet with notebook
and coffee would like this place,
tucked out of the way
off the main drag - Four Winds
they call it; a carved tiki
over the counter,
some flax wall hangings.
A rare copy of Tuwhare's
Selected Poems on the
magazine rack (the one that
McIndoe did with the Bernard
Holman cover).
"You've got good taste!'' I say,
holding the book up to the
woman working behind the counter.
"Yeah,'' she laughs, "and everyone
wants to steal it!'' ...
It's forty years since I was last
in this town _ hitching up from
Dunedin to pick tobacco with
a mate I'd met in a pub:
just starting to think about
poetry and writing.
I borrowed a book by Dylan
Thomas from a fellow picker
(a training-college student) -
Dylan's picture on the cover:
pen raised, wild hair,
fag in mouth - lips
curled like tobacco leaves
after the early morning sun
dries the dew.
- Peter Olds is a former recipient of the Burns Fellowship. He recently collaborated with artist Kathryn Madill on a collection, Skew-Whiff (Dunedin, Otakou Press, 2011).
