Hebe Kearney
seedheads brush against mossy headstones,
it puts her in mind of a painting. someone
has mowed rows between graves,
expecting descendants to pilgrimage.
nothing is ever all the way lost.
the painting is ‘christina’s world’ with
its golden grass swaying open
such a wide space between
woman and her goal, she thinks,
distance yawns so ambiguous.
white crosses lean wrongly, somehow,
lichen swallows engravings. perhaps
it is not exactly cruel to be eaten
by nature and time.
it hangs on her grandparent’s wall,
blond lockwood moaning in the wee hours,
expelling the day’s heat.
she lies awake and thinks christina
somehow has her nana’s heart,
ossified around longing.
she’s with the catholics now, the monuments
more intricate, though still choked in overgrowth.
angels weep, obelisks salute, she wonders
how dead the pope is, and if thinking that here will damn her
more than she is already damned.
christina’s birdlike arms bring to mind
nana’s wedding dress, its 60s silk in her camphor chest so
tiny to contain her newly motherless form. no one else
ever fits it. nor her again, until
cachexia prophecy
returns her avian form.
she knows her nana’s brother is buried here,
stoneless underneath weedy snarl. his tiny
body probably not bones anymore. he will be
oldest and youngest forever. resting
secretly under soft soil
the pain of him was covered in.
she knows christina can never go home,
brushstroke frozen. seeing a windowful
of titirangi’s sparse stars beyond lockwood, she thinks
home is further away than the dogstar. shedding
a few tears for the limping heathcote and its willowy banks.
a short flight as impassable as a golden field.
she decides it’s striking we fight to remember
despite the grass, moss, lichen, rot
living by erasing us. maybe it’s true
that christina’s world is a conquest after all;
that everything is so much more exquisite
when it feels already gone.
A grave at Waikumete Cemetery. Photo supplied by the author.
For copyright reasons, we are unable to publish in tandem the painting ‘christina’s world’ by Andrew Wyeth, painted in 1948, which is also described in this poem.
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Hebe Kearney is a queer poet/artist from Ōtautahi who now calls Tāmaki Makaurau home. They are the founder of Blackout Poetry Aotearoa, through which they promote ‘found poetry’ by offering workshops, competitions, zines, exhibitions, and collaborations. They believe strongly in community, and the transformative power of poetry, even for people that don’t consider themselves ‘writers’. They have also been known to use their history degrees to fool around in the past for poetry’s sake. You can find their writing in many of Aotearoa’s wonderful publications, at @blackoutpoetryaotearoa and @thefoundartclub on Instagram, and in stranger places than that.
