Blackbird

There is no shelter in this empty whare I’ve become, and the mamae – I hate the way that kupu contains ‘mama’.

In the wind is the sound of my unvoiced keening; in the mama blackbird’s beak the worms of my earthbound grief; and in the sunshine on my upturned face reminders of your tenderness.

I walk the in-between, accustomed to the piercing threat of losing myself to this sorrow. And I kid myself, that if I look deeply enough into my mirror-reflected eyes I might glimpse you there.

When will I emerge from my own shallow grave?

I wobbled last night at your second wake, and knew precisely how you’d joined the tupuna – to rest in the whetū, and lay your hands upon my back. But I no longer recognise the landscape of my body, like the ash that is weeping.

These tears dripping from chin to bare knees will never cease – the impermanence of life and permanence of death.

Tell me, where is the home for bereaved mothers?

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Iona Winter (Waitaha) writes in hybrid forms and is poetry editor for the Otago Daily Times. The author of three collections – Gaps in the Light (2021), Te Hau Kāika (2019), and then the wind came (2018) – she is widely published and anthologised internationally. Iona has a master’s degree in creative writing (AUT), and is currently working on a creative non-fiction project which addresses the complexities of being suicide bereaved. 

Instagram: @iona_winter

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Website: ionawinter.wordpress.com