Colloquy with Stephen

The original post.

Me:

Black Jack Delahunty
stands near river’s mouth
at hand a spade, edge thickened with mud
Don’t ask why he’s been digging
you don’t want to know

Stephen:

what, says Jack?
it is potatoes I have dug
tutaekuri, urenika the Maories call them
dog-turds and black-cocks
tasty enough they are
but I miss the smooth pale roots of home.

Me:

The bed, dug over, had come up dun,
the tater crop all blight and death.
Jack saw it in his sisters’ faces,
the new, hard knowledge:
they would not be long for this Old World.

Sometimes, far flung
he wishes for better memories
but these too are old wishes;
they moulder in deep, far distant ground.

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