Born in 1986, Courtney Meredith is an English graduate from the University of Auckland, where she co-edited Spectrum 5. Courtney has tutored poetry workshops for Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust, New Zealand Book Month, Ngāti Whātua, Corbans Estate Arts Centre and her own initiative for youth, Spread the Word. She has exhibited her poetry on vinyl and film with her collective, Forward Frangipani. She credits her late grandmother Rita Meleisea Meredith and her mother, Kim Meredith Melhuish, as the driving forces behind her writing.
‘Way South’
I said where you from baby? And you said
Way South.
Nup
nah
never been there
what grows there
women or moss?
And you said
Way South flowers
purple hearts with blood grape trim and hymns
hymns like cotton fish across the white sun
a smoky cherub wide-eyed chorus
wailing on and calling on and falling on
hymns rise up from the baking tar
a rose cloud of voice
a crimson Cortina on the corner and Lorna is a nice name for a girl
and Paola is a nice name for a black Tahitian pearl
hymns rise up from the shadow limbs and yard milk sodden mouth
out the back round the back down the back and you said
Way South.
It isn’t like an Island nipple nup
no breezing trees and caramel sand
no coconut truths spilling over woven fans
no plans of making love to the land.
There isn’t a wooden face to stand my hands against and still
the rising falling chest, the salty dusky mess
Way South like a bat back to hell.
Babies grow in babies leaving paisley prints on ladies’ skin
finer than and greener than a pounamu teardrop in the eyes of no man’s land.
But can you hear the voices?
Clear as chimes at dusk
we eat sea hearts black and pulsing
skin the shells of silver rust
this is where the angels come
to down their wings and cuss
Te Henga caves make pilgrims brave
to shatter rock and bust
Way South like dead love walking wailing crawling
back to lust.
You can spy the timber spine of every creature on his step
straight for cemeteries resting heads and flower beds on top of death beds
joking ’bout the big smoke and the doubts that will not rest.
Souls pity the metal facts of the city
nodding that we’ve missed the dunes and cliffs
lining pebbles skyward, gift upon gift
the mountain body stands and lies
Way South
where the beast sleeps
Way South
with its mean streets
and ciggy-stained teeth.
Nup
nah
never been there
what grows there?
‘Mothers pray for sons
sons pray for brothers
fathers search for daughters
sisters wait for lovers
Way South
Way South’
Dark boys high on the hill
are dead as the bright leaves falling
walking their bikes up the dusty track
stopping to smoke and look at the ants
like lost stars
set above the city
they pretend no one they love
is buried there.