Contents

THE SPEED OF GOD

Into the Blue Light

The Speed of God

Titipounamu Tapping the Beech Forest

Mackenzie Country

Learning to Read

10th April 1968

The Illuminated Page

Laced in with the Wind

It’s Strange the Way That Memory

Small Bird without a Sky

Tears, Trees, Birds & Grass

The Old Cemetery

The Year Between

At the Boatshed

Short Takes on My Father

SEACLIFF EPISTLES

Epistle of Maeve

First Epistle of Grace

What You Knew about Water

A Slip of a Girl

‘A Great Many Never Seen a Ship Before’

A Luckless Birth

The Workhouse Girls

Kevin’s Fortune

The Asylum Keys

Epistle of Mick

Epistle of Kevin

The Asylum Songbirds

Second Epistle of Grace

The Word of Agnes

Acknowledgements