I’m so grateful for the time someone spent with me this afternoon – so patient – listening to my story – suggesting – clarifying – helping me to write my mihi – and more deeply – to connect with and claim my mihi as my own.
I came home – and stopped in front of this kawakawa bush – I was thinking about it yesterday and I knew the best thing would be to make tea from its leaves and let the past settle while I waited for it to steep.
I sit now with my tongue tingling along with my heart.
a band of pale grey wraps around my wrist
a band that moves and glows with life
shimmering, twisting, sliding down
against the bones of my hand
when turned between fingers and thumb
the metal warms, the light brightens
and I shift sideways
and all is light and warm
and time is younger
and skin is softer
the band of silver sings
and I am filled with the scent
of winter frost on southern thyme
and summer-dry grass beside the lake
and your hair freshly washed
and raspberries crushed between your fingers
daily prompt – describe the scent of silver – from Sarah Selecky https://www.storyisastateofmind.com/
I love these prompts, although I’m never organised enough
to work on them daily as is intended.
They trigger all sorts of associations and memories and ideas
that are unexpected, and usually welcome.
©clairegriffin2017
I hear you child – I hold your heart in mine
don’t curse the night – or you will forever ride the darkness
I am here – I am always here – look up – I am waiting
I am giving you time
permanence is illusion – all things shift and return to source
chaos is the foundation – live in the change and shape it
©clairegriffin2017
The earth shifts –
moving
she stirs to wake me.
This air I breathe –
is your breath.
This land I walk –
is your body.
All that time away,
the image of this land burned
on the back of my eyes.
I saw nothing –
but through the after-image
of mountain, lake, forest, river, sea.
Here now, whole again,
to read the map of my land
to walk my own path.
I would be one with you.
© Claire Griffin 2016
We had an earthquake last night –
and I remembered this poem,
written after the first earthquake I felt
after my return to NZ from the UK.
At different times
we came to this place,
to this circle of stone,
and we both felt the
mystery was our own.
There was no choice –
we could do nothing,
but reach out –
and lay our hands upon the stone,
reach out –
and hold the stone,
as if embracing.
Who are we,
that we can slip through time,
touch the past,
and be so moved?
Who are we
if we cannot?
© Claire Griffin 2016
(One of several pieces written over twenty years ago (!)
Looking back now I think that I was trying to create in writing
a connection to someone that perhaps I couldn’t find in any other way.
Still – I like some of these as poems in their own right –
and can read the “we” in a more universal sense,
extending beyond my intentions at the time)
invisible necessity 
