Poem – Andrew Wood

Karl Wolfskehl
(1869-1948)

The first olive tree in Auckland
was hidden like a seed’s germ in the heart of a
German Jew,
a refugee, and exile.
The olive tree is there in the face,
the lumpish nose, the plow
lines around the eyes, anchored
to the mud of the furthest archipelago.

The drab leaves drink in the Mediterranean
sunlight
in Auckland, and the roots
still in Auckland
stab deep to black blood old as Charlemagne
all the way to Jerusalem and Egypt
and the inconsolable grief of ploughed-up olive
groves,
scorched, upturned and sown with salt –
all of this is packed into the ancient wood grain.

But German songbirds still manage to chorus in
the branches
of this Auckland olive tree,
and every leaf twisting in the breeze from the
azure harbour
is a wink.
But all that most people perceive is an old, bent
olive tree,
hunched over, senescent,
perhaps even a little suspect, malevolent,
a blind German Jew burdened with too much
culture –

thus the still, small voice of the golden kowhai
instead
of the brazen shofar that rocked the walls of
Jericho.

 

Andrew Wood

Tagged with:
Posted in Poem
Search the archive

More results...

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Filter by Categories
Architecture
Art
Autobiography
Awards
Biography
Byline
Children
Comment
Contents
ebooks
Economics
Editorial
Education
Essays
Extract
Fiction
Gender
Graphic novel
Health
History
Imprints
Language
Lecture
Letters
Letters
Literature
Māori
Media
Memoir
Music
Natural History
Non-fiction
Obituaries
Opinion
Pacific
Photography
Plays
Poem
Poetry
Politics & Law
Psychology
Religion
Review
Science
Short stories
Sociology
Sport
War
YA Reviewers
Young adults
Recent issues: subscriber-only access

    Subscribe to NZ Books to access the issues above

    Search by category

    See more