Robbie, these hillocks are not your hillocks. A murder

of kākā watched me hack the thistle from its perch.

It is Summer and gorseflower lights a path

from one wharf to another. People come and go

because this is not someplace to hold to. Home.

Robbie, this is not your highland; these hoggets

smell of flax and bracken and the sea that licks

its fingers over and over. Fleeces of kelp-water

and sheep grease, my starched hands. Robbie,

there are days I wake and cannot remember

whether I’m of this place. My waka that ran aground

and leeched its oils into a watercolour poem.

They say your ghost ran aground here too, Robbie,

interrupting the passing of one year to another:

We two have run about the hills

And pulled the daisies fine.

This can be a turning, Robbie, a red foam that settles a tide,

the oyster catcher’s canned laughter blackening into a burial.

I watch a midnight flare accost the stars. The loneliest

Auld Lang Syne playing on a radio too far away.

Judges’ comments: A haunting poem about place and belonging that cleverly incorporates Robert Burn’s ‘Auld Lang Syne’, with memorable lines like "This can be a turning, Robbie, a red foam that settles a tide, / the oyster catcher’s canned laughter blackening into a burial."