Jacquie Sturm was born in Ōpunake, New Zealand, with tribal affiliations to Taranaki iwi, Parihaka and Whakatōhea. She published poetry and short stories in periodicals and anthologies since 1947. In the early 1950s she became the first Māori woman to obtain an MA from a New Zealand university. Sturm’s first collection of short stories, The House of the Talking Cat), was published in 1983 and her first collection of poems, Dedications (1996), received the Honour Award for poetry in the 1997 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. She published a second collection of poems, Postscripts, in 2002, and The Glass House: Stories & Poems in 2006. Following the death of her husband, James K. Baxter, she worked as a librarian in Wellington for two decades before retiring to Paekākāriki. She died in December 2009 and is buried in her iwi’s urupā at Ōpunake.
With two cats on his lap
a fond woman at his side
(sure she’s not a blonde,
can’t recall her teens,
but still able enough
and most times willing)
he could be mildly happy.
Mourns instead the life
he thinks he should have had,
wears discontent most days till night,
but then – ah then, realities
he cannot, dare not remember
ambush him in his dreams
demanding to be lived again.
The faded blue couch
keeps on fading
in a weak winter sun.
The old black tomcat
twitches in his young
Bagheera hunting dreams.
The tortoise-shell female
poses like a dancer
on a pyramid in hers.
The old man between them
sinks back thankfully
into sleep, another place,
an earlier time, before
any posing or hunting,
weakening or fading,
before all of these
and me, talking
as usual, to myself.
Beware old ladies,
age is their disguise.
Behind that wrinkled mask
a young girl smiles,
her hands still hold
a baby or a lover,
and in her dreams, believes
her prince will surely come.
Lend me your loving
if you cannot give it,
let me lean on your look,
rest my head on your smile.
And later, please not yet,
let me stand in the shadow
of your last going
while my sun goes down.