When I’m near the end and can’t be bothered

with tubes and things,

if that’s the way it goes,

take me into the bush and lay me down

amongst the ferns

And if I tell you I hear the song

of the south island kōkako

as it glides down

towards me

don’t say it can’t be true

just say it sings and beats its wings for me and you

When my breath is stilled

stay with me an hour or two

to hear the forest grow

A man of few words

and no vices

unless you count watching three lots of news every evening a vice

And muting the sports news.

He’d ‘defrocked’ himself, he said,

to not be tempted to prescribe

medicine beyond his knowledge

as he grew old.

Reserved by nature

yet he’d taken to the stage

in Gilbert and Sullivans.

In his later years he found his place

in choirs –

I watched the performance of

The Armed Man,

moving beyond words

but my tears were for the pride

I saw on his face

as he saw me watching him.

He’d bike through the park

to his other place, the Noosa Theatre,

where he was forever a Kiwi number 8 wirer.

There is no summing up of 88 years

or even the 60 I knew him for

But who will hear the lorikeets?

Who will mourn the mango tree?

Who will watch the pelicans land?

And who will eat all the dahl now?

In threads of saffron,

bright aromatic veins

of my childhood,

the Khond comes to me.

Dirty knees up to my chin

in the battered tin bath

on the verandah,

I pour water – pumped from the well in our garden –

over my head,

plastering curls flat against my cheeks.

I giggle as the square bar of yellow soap

slips from my slimy grip

and lands on the concrete floor,

skidding,

to rest under the overhanging branch

festooned with ripe bobbing lychees.

I follow the bare leathered soles

pounding the rust-red earth,

in the dance of the rising dust

settling on the silvery edges of the

swish swishing saris.

Brown arms turn and sway

like music-drugged cobras,

bangles clinking.

I run my fingers over

my own glass bangles,

green and gold and red

and spin them round my bony wrist.

I inhale the fruity steam

of the freshly ejected

water buffalo turds

mingling with the scent

of the shaved sandalwood curls

falling between Parvat’s twisted feet.

He gives me some,

smiles and nods his head

as I raise the curls to my nostrils,

then place them carefully

in the pocket of my grimy cotton dress.

I stroke the buffalo calf quickly on its nose

while its mother looks away

and my heart is beating like the rising drums

of a village bear-hunt,

an escalating metronome.

The reverberating clang

of the curry gong

releases Ping and Pong,

with their quack and waddle,

from our inventive clutches

to an hour of respite

under the giant mango tree,

frothy with mustard-coloured flowers.

Salivating in anticipation of Isro’s goat stew,

I run.

Soon every smear is mopped up

and popped into my mouth

with a ripped-off bit of chapatti.

My sister’s eyes meet mine

as we lunge for the last ghee-coated pappadom

and it shatters,

projecting brittle shards like tiny rockets.

The cry of the hungry jackal

roaming the edge of the jungle

startles me

for a moment.

As its suppered belly rests

on the wrong side of the fence

I wonder if it spits the feathers out.

But if I wander too far

back in time,

the trembling shadows

of the Meriah

stretch their arms out

and reel me in.

A young girl’s lip quivers

As her anguished kohl-smudged eyes

Meet mine.

She is my sister too.

The first scream

slices the air

and in the frenzy of knives

and broken veins

and flesh,

the sacrificial harvest-blood

runs through the ground

like threads

of rich red saffron.

The canvas is heavier now,

with layers of textured oils

of darker hues

beneath the brightness

of my childhood brush strokes.

I see the Khond Hills

as they slink

into darkness

on a  frangipani breeze.

The beater sits outside the Dhanraj Ranmal Bhatia sweet shop on a stone block, cushioned by a folded hessian sack. He raises the giant wooden pestle high above his head, straight-armed, muscles taut, the saffron-yellowed end pointing forwards. As he brings it down he aligns it with the stone mortar at his feet, gripped between his knees. He pounds the aromatic golden mixture. The dull thud reverberates through the ground beneath my sandals. Each time before beginning its descent the pestle is poised, motionless for a second. The man’s eyes never waver from the mortar. Wafts of cardamom mingle with the smell of sunburnt dust in 47 degrees, steaming cow turds, human sweat and next door’s simmering pots of gobi musallum, dahl and palak paneer. The beater’s grey cotton shirt has been ripped to short sleeves. His hair sticks to his forehead and rivulets of sweat are filtered through his lashes before continuing down his face and neck. His heavy brows are puckered in concentration. He pays no attention to the colourful saris swishing past on silver-bangled ankles, or to customers stopping to select sweets from the glass shop-front counter alongside him.

Finally, it is ready. The beater puts his pestle aside. A boy in a red and blue checked shirt helps him empty the mixture into a tarnished copper bowl. The each grip a looped handle and carry it to a newspaper covered block beside the counter.

They perch opposite each other, the bowl stabilised in an old motor bike tyre. They roll large globs of the sticky mixture into perfect globes between their palms. Their fingers blur. Their forearm veins stand out like tree roots above the ground.

The sweet seller behind the counter glances our way and smiles. “Wedding sweet, our speciality. Famous all over Rajasthan. You should try one.” It comes out almost like a song.

The rounded-belly-shaped walls of the golden sandstone fort of Jaisalmer tower above the little sweet shop. Not long ago the whole city was housed within those walls but it burst at its seams. The winding streets, like umbilical cords, crept out over the desert sands. Around the corner from the sweet shop is an arched entrance to the fort, guarded by a group of Rajasthani women, their eyes glinting as brightly as the jangly anklets they sell. They do not give up. They call and screech, rainbow lorikeets of the Thar desert.

The sweet is delicious. Saffron and cardamom, pressed sugar cane, perhaps ground almonds, or roasted semolina. I am not sure. The sweet seller laughs when I ask. “People would kill for that information. And I would be out of business.” He laughs for a long time.

An auto rickshaw swerves to avoid a cow lounging in the middle of the dirt road, flicking flies with its tail. A group of young women step under the faded awning of the tailor’s shop to get out of its way, their chatter unbroken. They continue, the sunlit silver and gold borders of their saris softly sweeping the dust before them.

    The Singer treadle sewing machine whirrs as a wiry bare foot presses the pedal. The tailor’s head nods in time. He snips the thread, inspects the shirt and folds it neatly. He motions to the sweet seller, who places a single wedding sweet into a twist of newspaper. The boy takes it to him.

An apparition in a clean white kurta and loose-fitting salwar, eyes fixed straight ahead, floats past slowly on his motorbike. It is Swaroop, from a textile handcraft emporium two blocks away. He is pretending not to be spying. He thinks we are his.

The flat rooftops of the city spread out below the fort were rarely still. They were a platform for kite-flying, drying laundry, animated debates, outdoor eating, sleeping and all sorts of other activities. 

Amina concentrated on the ball, tense as a tiger ready to pounce on dinner. The only movement came from the tunic tails of her Punjabi dress, lifting in the breeze. As her young nephew Atul bowled, she sprang sideways into the ball’s path and whacked it into the metre and a half high concrete wall of the rooftop restaurant. Her eyebrows relaxed and she grinned as he scurried to retrieve it.

“Are you ready?” He practised his English.

“Always.”

This time it flew over the wall and the boy raced down the steps to find it before the neighbours’ kids did. Puffing, he returned holding it aloft.

“I had to beg Narayan for it. He said you have to bring him some halwa or shandesh to pay for it.”

“Ha! Why should I pay for my own cricket ball? Tell me that.”

Amina was an ex-officer of the Indian army. She had retired just two years earlier to run a restaurant and a women’s guesthouse with her sister in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. She was also involved with a women’s refuge and had a seat on the local council.

I learnt to love cricket in the army,” she told me. “We played whenever there was nothing to do. It’s the only thing I miss.”

Waving to Atul to bowl, she took her position and once more tried to break concrete with a rubber ball.

Steam rose from my bowl. Slabs of soft white cheese lay submerged in a bog of slimy spinach sauce, spiced to defy expectation.

I watched Amina’s ponytail sweeping the air. Behind her the Blue City’s rooftops were coming to life with children tossing their homemade kites to the breeze. The boys on the nearest roof deliberated ambush tactics as they eyed a high-flying lone red sniper.

High in front of her, perched on a cliff, the red sandstone Mehangarh Fort owned the skyline. Its sacred Kites, known as Cheels, rode the currents undaunted by their paper and stick counterparts. The eggshell-blue city of Jodhpur crouched at Mehrangarh’s feet. A stone footpath, a back route, snaked from the restaurant up to the first of the fort’s seven gates.

Revenge, scandal and intrigue seep from the pores of the burnished walls of the fort, often called The Citadel of the Sun. The fort was founded in 1459 A.D. by the Maharaja Rao Jodha, fifteenth of the Rathore dynasty, which ruled the surrounding Land of Death from the thirteenth until the twentieth century. The Rathores believe they are direct descendants of the sun. But in many ways it is the sun itself which rules this barren landscape. Trying to thwart a curse placed on Jodha – that his citadel would forever suffer a scarcity of water – he persuaded a man called Rajiya to let himself be buried alive in the foundations of the fort in return for a promise that his family would be looked after through the generations. True to he promise, Rajiva’s descendants still enjoy the current Maharanja’s favour, living in an estate called Rajiva’s Garden. Perhaps it was his bones which gave the fort the strength to withstand every siege ever mounted against it.

And perhaps it was the hill itself, on which the fort was built, which encouraged inopportune flight. Known variously as Bhakurcheeria, the Mountain of Birds, or Bakharchiriya, the Bird’s Nest, or Cheeriatunk, the Bird’s Beak, the hill’s original inhabitant was the hermit Cheeria Nathji, Lord of the Birds – the man who had cursed Jodha.

“Did you know that Maharaja Maan Singh dropped his Prime Minister from the ramparts? He fell over 120 metres and was completely squashed.”

Atul was hunting for the ball under the tables as I ripped off pieces of chapatti to mop the last vestiges of palak paneer from my bowl.

“And Prince Jaswant Singh tossed his mistress out the window. The problem was she was also his father’s mistress. He found out, you see.”

Visitors could be excused for thinking of the fort’s history as a series of plummeting bodies.

Atul’s mother brought him a samosa, the sun bouncing off her bangles. She said something to him in Hindi and smiled, stroking his cheek once with a finger.

“She said I talk too much. But I was top of my class in history. Another Maharaja, Rao Ganga, he fell to his death too. People say he was smoking opium.”

A young Swiss traveller was leaning over the perimeter wall of the rooftop, adjusting the lens of her camera. She stiffened, then turned to beckon Amina.

“That’s him. I’d hoped to see him again and there he is.”

“Are you sure it’s him?” asked Amina.

“Ninety-five percent, but I want to get a closer look.”

She abandoned her camera, bag, sandals and Lonely Planet guidebook and hurried down the steps while Amina watched, frowning.

A group of three youths in jeans faced each other, talking, at the start of the footpath. One was tucking his shirt in, and smoothing his hair behind his ears. The young traveller walked past them, crossing the narrow street as if going to the guesthouse opposite. She turned her face towards them to get a better look, then doubled back, striding right into their circle and eyeballing the Bollywood-handsome one. The traveller was tall, her knee-length shorts revealing sun-browned muscular calves.

“It was you, wasn’t it? She directed to the youth.

It was clearly not a question. Amina, listening, sucked her breath in, then slipped her jandals on and ran down the steps, still holding the cricket bat. The youth spun on his heels, arms waving like an albatross as he fled along the narrow street, which ran around the base of the hill. His mates dissolved into the gathering crowd and dust. The Swiss Miss followed, a tangle of curly brown hair escaping her clip as she gained on him, in the obstacle course of dogs, chickens, rubbish and bicycles. Amina’s pajama-like trousers flashed through the throng. She didn’t stop as she yelled something through an open window. A man in a singlet rushed out the door and joined the chase. Men and women shouted and pointed in three different directions. The children abandoned their games to race after the chasers – all except a little girl in a pink ruffled dress with kohl framing her eyes, who squatted in the gutter with both arms around a squawking duck.

The man who had joined the chase was an off-duty policeman. He hadn’t managed to catch the youth, but now knew who he was.

“I just want him to be shamed, in front of his mothers and his sisters,” said the young traveller.

“He will be,” said Amina. “Our young men would never dare to do that to an Indian woman.”

On the path to the fort he had unsuccessfully tried to hire himself out to the traveller as a guide. He had then groped her crotch before racing back down the path.

“I was so shocked I couldn’t do anything in time.”

There are handprints on the walls near the innermost gate of the fort, where some of the queens left their mark as they walked their last steps to the funeral pyre of a Maharaja, to share his flames in the Rajasthani tradition of sati. When Maharaja Ajit Sing died, six queens and fifty eight concubines burnt alongside him.

Amina, as beautiful as the warrior queens depicted in miniature paintings, had not married.

“I like to be free.” She puckered her lips as the ball whooshed over the wall. “You know, there are some women who still think sati’s the best option.”

I’ve seen you in every bonfire since

that bonfire

which you missed.

It flickered in the valley

in a thousand sets of village eyes

while your eyes,

brown as roast chestnuts,

lost their last focus

on the red and white striped climbing rope

which lay beside you,

a discarded umbilical cord

amongst the rocky debris

and flattened alpine gentians.

The cliff stood gashed and stilled behind you

in the fading light.

A marmot’s whistle sliced the night,

a last salute to you who loved to spot them,

still as granite sentinels

rising from the alpine grass.

As first of August fireworks raced towards the stars,

shapeshifters, show offs,

the white-iced peak of Blumlisalp

hovered above you like a dove.

Your village waited,

a flaccid flag beside the bonfire ash.

I remember how we made a snake of sleds,

twelve of us, disciples of fun

and winter sun.

We slid and scraped along the frozen street

behind Dan’s old Opel wagon.

Above empty window boxes

heads gazed out, framed in sunburned wood,

eyes disapproving of all

that might not be allowed.

Your cheeks flushed pink

as mountain rhododendron

beneath your bright red zottlekappe,

your zipfelmutze,

(your thin woollen farmer’s beanie with the long tassel)

that whipped the falling snowflakes

as you grinned and swerved your body

right then left,

forcing the snake’s lower vertebrae

to swing wildly,

careering from kerb to kerb.

And old Herman Kunzi,

hip replaced Bergfuhrer

who thumbed his nose at electricity

and summer daylight savings

let out a snow-shaking-off-tweed-shoulders guffaw.

I remember how he looked at you

and winked

then ambled on, still chortling.

On a snow-lined street

“Heisse marroni heisse marroni!” they call

and fill a paper cone with fire-roasted chestnuts.

I hold it to my face

and the heat almost sears my cheeks.

We sang in Xanadu cave

Your rich strong bass notes

suspended like jewels

amongst the glow worms

You introduced me to Mrs Miller

who sucked ice cubes before she whistled

to improve the tone

Catch a Falling Star

It’s a Hard Day’s Night

So many dreadful renditions

it was hard to choose my favourite

Your old record player

knew a thing or two

about oddballs

Your ashes

tossed to the breeze

at Perfect Strangers beach

Some came to rest, I know,

on the grave of The Tin Man

You were his biggest fan

You and he still do

a sprightly dance

when the moon is overhead

lighting up the stage

for no one but yourselves

For history, as you know,

is not that dead at all.

We always stayed out on the water

till we’d seen the interesting thing

An ancient turtle with its battle scarred shell

A solo cruising tiger shark, sunlight dancing off its boldly patterned back

A gentle dugong munching on sea grass

calmly moving away, matching us inch by inch

A family of synchronized swimming rays

Dolphins, one two six seven ten

leading, tailing, looping

dashing, splashing

they always win the game

On those achingly serene days

of sea surface stretched out

like liquid glass

we didn’t want to head for shore

even after we’d seen the interesting thing

I met the lama’s wife, it’s true,

cavorting, chortling

lifting up her coloured skirts

swish-swishing,

tendrils of grey hair escaping

from her low bun.

She never took her eyes off you,

her new daughter

in gleeful camaraderie.

I was in Whangarei, it’s true,

but I met the lama’s wife.

Girlish gap-toothed grin,

face creased

like the crevassed landscape

above Shey Gompa,

clang cling clang

of dented metal cookware,

thump thump thud and slide

of heavily socked feet

on the rough wooden boards

that had seen a thing or two

but never such a devilish dance as yours

I was in Whangarei, it’s true,

but I met the lama’s wife.

What ghosts of snow leopards

leapt away in fright

that night

only to slink back

and peek

through ancient wall-cracks?

And as you sang your

hearty tuneless song

the lama’s wife

she whooped and cried

and sang along, with Himalayan lungs.

I was in Whangarei, it’s true,

but I met the lama’s wife.

She saw me there,

she turned and locked

those dark and bird-like eyes

on mine

for just a moment,

nodded,

then went back to dancing

Swish swish, thump thump thud and slide

“We are the last stoats

Stuart and Stefanie

the last stoats

on Aotearoa’s  shores.

We are the last stoats

Stuart and Stefanie

the last stoats

so spare us we implore.”

“Do you think we are crazy

or stupid or dumb?

If we let you live

our good work’d be undone!

For you the last stoats

Stuart and Stefanie

would be the first stoats

of a million more

on Aotearoa’s shores.

So please stop your whining

Don’t plead and don’t cry

The sun is out shining

It’s a good day to die

For you the last stoats

Stuart and Stefanie

the last stoats

on Aotearoa’s shores.”

“Righty-ho ranger

we’ll give up the fight

if you give us a last meal

our constitutional right.

A last meal to dine on

To savour, to crunch

Can you guess what we’re wanting?

We bet you have a hunch.

We’d like four whio ducklings

so succulent, so fresh

and a couple of kiwi

just out of the nest.

and two little riflemen

to gulp in one go

and eight emerald geckos

which move far too slow.

Then a few long-tailed bats

so chewy, so nice –

no need for marinating

or sprinkling of spice!

When those entrees are eaten

we’ll be ready for mains

A plump kakapo

just served up plain

And two kea, skewered

to keep them in place

The way they flap around

is an utter disgrace.”

“Oh, you never give up

and it’s too late to run

No last meal for you two

Your days here are done.

You are the last stoats

Stuart and Stefanie

the last stoats

on our beautiful shores.

We will see you no more.”