Elegy for Diana Parsons
Like many things at Seacliff
Your pain and suffering
Were hidden behind beauty
Those tree-lined paths
Leading up to your house
Veiled the violence
Domestic, they call it
Your children, also beautiful
Bore it silently
Justin would talk aloud
To his pet magpie
Which dive-bombed
The village, talking to
Grace on the bus coming home
From Dunedin, the Coast Road
Radiant or sullen and dark
Depending on its mood
Like your husband
The history of Seacliff
Is your history, whether
It was the wonder of
Watching your other daughters
Donna and Juliet grow and bloom
Or the mythological Red
Always in the background
With his motorbike, yeah!
And, then your own aroha
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