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Birds Passing the Night
Birds Passing the Night - Riemke Ensing
Birds Passing the Night
In the flight of the ruru
voices recalling the past
shaping the future perhaps
Ancestors
seating themselves at the window
glad to be part of the talk
the reverence for night
when wind blows us
stories and rain is a song
caught in the remembering throat.
first published in Tarawera Te Maunga Tapu (Pear Tree Press, 1999), from Talking Pictures: Selected Poems (HeadworX, 2000), © Riemke Ensing 2000, used by permission of the author. Recording from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive 2004