'Baxter'

Because the flax blades bend above
The dark bay, this way and that

In the shoreward wind; because their fronds
Are loud and heavy as if loaded

With clangour of remembered fatal words;
Because the great skein cannot be unwound

Begun by anger in the birth cords twist
That plaits a noose of water for the land;

I will not go on the green cliff-top track
Tonight or any night while the sea’s throat

Is filled with the voices of the oldest friends
Who offer what the living cannot find.

From Ode to Auckland and Other Poems by James K.Baxter
'Baxter' Original Print by Neil Buddle - Exhibiting at Corban Estate Arts Centre New Zealand