Marie Cameron

Marie Cameron began writing poetry in her sixties. She decided to start short and simple and work up but ten years on her poems have become even shorter. Marie's work has appeared in several New Zealand anthologies and in both Australian and New Zealand poetry magazines. She lives in Beachlands on Auckland's south eastern coast.

Emily Refuses

Because the sea rolls green

before the wind I surf the

clouds for Emily Bronte

hoping to share the emptiness

but as always

the message comes back

'Emily refuses'

everything hangs

on those four cows watching me

over the fence

on the nest the sparrows build

in this sweet-smelling pepper tree

on our boychild I rock

in his pram

dirty work

On such a grey day I see

the cock sparrow feeding the

half-grown nestling

as a paedophile

playing fast and loose with

a perky piece of tail

and the white feather in each

of the young sparrow's wings

as the dirty work of the

lone cock finch

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