Benita Kape: Linen Clouds

.

Behind me the house which has a life of its own. Perhaps young children lie abed. One may be reading, the very young sleeping, the father listening to the radio. Perhaps the father has directed the older of the children to attend to after dinner chores.

.

But I, the woman of the house with but a month until the next expected baby arrives in spring, am seated here on the veranda. I have left the busy day's activities behind me. I have lowered my tiny frame and my big rounded ball of a belly into a deep chair. I look into a row of trees in a park across the road and claim it to be a forest in my mind's eye.

.

But beyond my little forest a forest of children loom large; children who play in the kindergarten on the edge of the small park. I muse in the present, drift back to the future; the times when grandchildren took up the tea-towels after a family meal; argued over who would wash and who would dry and who among them might be put on roster for another evening. Now great-grandchildren have reached an age to take their turn in the ritual of washing and drying dishes as I go take a seat in a quite corner.

.

They joke that I have no mechanical apparatus to do away with such a boring chore. Funny how quickly they learned to flick tea-towels. Funny how it does not remain boring for long.

.

linen clouds

a child

and a kitten

entertain their

sleeping audience

.

by Benita Kape

Gisborne, New Zealand

Benita Kape: Unveiling Day

Some months before the full year has passed, the family make plans. The plaque for the grave—this will be kept simple. Two river stones and the plinth on which they stand collect lichen for under these stones our infant son has laid for forty years. All must be spruced up for the occasion; yet in time lichen will return to run over and around the shells that, like an ancient language, inscribe the surface of the stones.

It is the custom of the people that one year following the burial or, at a time suitably close to the first anniversary of that day, a ritual will take place. A plaque will be placed, in this case on the plinth beside our son's. Late in the day, the Stone Mason will complete his work. A cloak will then be reverently arranged and cover all while awaiting the final service.

moonlight
leaves
lightly falling

A year ago, it had been difficult to say goodbye. A circle of a year and the immediate family invite the wider circle of family and friends to gather. There will be prayers and readings; these are a people whose orations are renowned. In the bitter cold of a winter's day, those gathered draw in closer. Kuia nod in respect as the first speaker is motioned forward by the minister. Our surviving son begins in Te Reo. Discreetly given notice earlier by his sisters, "Don't you keep us out here in the cold too long."

near the cemetery
turning back
for a bouquet

And though he forgoes the whakapapa that was recited at the tangi, those present listen intently as he describes a meeting with a clairvoyant over the past few days. Unexpected perhaps, though strangely comforting, as we all gather strength to move on. The forthright eyes of an elder, my husband in air-force uniform, smile back at us from a ceramic photo on the plaque as the cloak is drawn aside. "This was the blanket briefly laid but forever to keep him warm," a niece of Rongowhakatau iwi declares on the minister's final blessing. Leaving the cemetery, we sprinkle water over our heads and rinse our hands at the gate handbasins.

unveiling day
old notes, new notes
in our waiata

Notes

Unveiling = a custom of the Maori people of New Zealand.
Kuia = the women elders.
Te Reo = the Maori language.
whakapapa = the names and relationship of the extended families (whanau).
tangi = funeral
waiata = song
Rongowhakatau = one of many tribes on the East Coast
iwi = tribe

by Benita Kape
Gisborne, New Zealand

Benita Kape: Shoe Shopping

.

Winter school holidays—my two great-grandsons are in town to stay with their Daddy. I take them, as I do every year, to the movies. And then we go shopping—a few clothes and always a pair of brand new shoes.

.

early spring

following a plow barefoot

planting potatoes

.

Times were hard. A large garden plot near the house supported the family. But in order to stretch the budget just that bit further my father grew seasonal crops. If we were big enough to bend and pick up a potato, we were big enough to put it in a sack. Some years we planted onions on the shortest day of the year. On the longest day, we helped our father and siblings harvest them. Another time the crop my father planted would be peas. He would provide much of these harvests to the grocers in the two local townships. But on occasion, he dealt these vegetables to his neighbours for items of use for his family.

.

carried to bed—

new second-hand, toe-worn

shoes and tears

.

.

by Benita Kape

Gisborne, New Zealand

Benita Kape: ROCK MELON MOON

nightdress . . .

slipping into my dreams
inside out

My brother has a house bus. Each summer he travels around the country working in orchards. This year he has decided to come to the district in which I live. Jokingly, I say, "Ask the orchadist if there might be a place for me." Next day I receive a phone call. "Come tomorrow at eight o'clock."

I have never worked in a fruit packing house. How will I cope with my fellow employees, young, fit people a third my age?

With sore muscles and bones, I survive my first full week. By the end of that week I have been placed at the end of the rock melon packing line. It is necessary that I work very quickly, very surely; and that in the evening I get very good rest.

In the morning I sing as I take my shower and try not to think too much of the day ahead and the difficult work in hand.

grading a distant moon
probably
size eight tonight

by Benita Kape
Gisborne, New Zealand