Spark

Our son, nearly one, has one near-word:
another determined birth
the sound stutters, gutters
then rushes and floods

“A-la,
a-lie,
a-lie-uh,
a-lie-uh-duh.”

He points to lamp and torch,
to LEDs on clock, computer, answer machine,
to sun-strike – on sash windows, ignited
from an old ute’s wing mirror, firing
a red beech leaf as it falls, flares,
flaught – like torn newsprint in a grate
as it spasms into flame….

“That’s right!” we say, “A light, a light.”
And as he points to hyacinth, door, cat,
and tries,

“A-lie?
A-lie-uh.
A-lie-uh-duh!”

say, “No, that’s a flower, a door, a  cat,”
but he, small and earnest professor,
cranes forward a little on his rump,
to repeat slowly and with extra care

“A-lie.
A-lie-uh.
A-lie-uh-duh”

until we look again.

It gathers in thick cones,
rods of bee caves
dozens of lilac oboe mouths
peeled back into stars.

It hovers on one wall
like a vertical lake
that rapidly drains
to miraculous views
(a dog! a tree! a car!)
then fills again with itself
hard, white, stilled.

It unfurls, blackbird-blue,
to arc and vault
from windowsill to garden

where discs and glints of it
flock, merge, and wheel apart
into hedge, clothesline, pegs, water,
frost on red roof, green blade, yellow grain:

“A-lie.
A-lie-uh.
A-lie-uh-duh.”

“Ah,” we say, “We see.  There. 
And there.
Light.  Light. 
All shapes of light.”

from Spark (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2008)