my father's kingdom

saturdays after lunch
father would carry into the study
a stack of politics, and sit in wood scent
reading till sleep claimed him,
or supper, or that sparkle of sun
sent in rear window to illume dim rooms,
blinding him out to the safety of trees
where we hooked a hammock,
heaved him into the sisal cradle,
left him curled like a foetus.
I brought him maotoana tea one day
and there lay on its face on the loam
beneath him a note-book, row on row
of scribble glaring at me, my father’s theory
on the likelihood of a glad
and bounteous kingdom.