Flying Home
Ella Borrie (Victoria University, Aotearoa/New Zealand)
light has a timbre on the hills
it falls like a blanket
woolly folds still & sure
I borrow Mum’s car
and drive down the gorge
my most known road
to Grandma Joan and Johnny
Lake Dunstan is silky
sucking light
from the valley below
if it’s early I bring cream doughnuts
from Avenue Bakery
or fruit bread from Wellington
up the driveway
wisteria waits to be purple
Grandma Joan sits in her
sunny chair
Johnny feeds quail
rolled oats
the plump flock surges
across the lawn
he makes her a cup of tea in bed
each morning
puts on a silly voice
fine tea in fine china for a fine lady
the hallway clock
chimes every
quarter hour
winter sun rests low
all afternoon
is golden hour in Otago
when I leave
an immense sky
& blazing mountains
flash in the rear view
the road curves ahead and away
I cannot keep
the image steady
Ella Borrie is a Te Whanganui-a-Tara based poet from Otago in Aotearoa New Zealand and is pursuing an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern letters. She was awarded the Biggs Family Prize in Poetry. Her work appears in Mimicry, Starling, Stasis Journal, Landfall and Turbine | Kapohau.
