KERRIN P SHARPE

Waiting on an Island for the Missing Balloonist


breathe the business of
memory from his clothes

build a cairn to
detain his shadow

with the weta1
plant harakeke2

phormium tenax
a shield from

wind fire injury
weave a kete3

to feel close to the sky
your waking a

kind of landing there
will be time for feasting

the new net has gone
fishing you do not need

a map or compass it is
waiting that does the finding

Kerrin P Sharpe is a teacher of creative writing and a published poet whose writing has “re-flowered” in recent years as her family has grown up. She has been published widely in Best New Zealand Poems 2008 (forthcoming April 2009), the New Zealand Listener, Poetry New Zealand, Takahe, Snorkel 5 and 6, Turbine 07, Bravado 13 and The Press (Christchurch). In 2008 she was awarded the New Zealand Post Creative Writing Teacher's Award from the International Institute of Modern Letters and attended the Sydney Writers' Festival in May 2009.

  1. Weta or wētā – a large insect found in Aotearoa/New Zealand
  2. Harakeke – flax/phormium tenax
  3. Kete – basket